For whom fern hill votes

I was not fully informed when I said that I'm voting Liberal.

Thanks to the Star, I thought there were no fun fringe parties represented in my riding: just Con, Lib, NDP, and Green.

I emailed the Lib to find out if she's pro-choice because I'd be in a pickle if she's not. (Some may remember that I also have serious problems with the Greenies.)

I just checked with Elections Canada and found that I do have fun fringers to choose between.

* Barney, Rachel (Green Party)
* Brown, Chester (Libertarian)
* Chow, Olivia (NDP-New Democratic Party)
* Innes, Christine (Liberal)
* Lin, Nick (Marxist-Leninist)
* Siow, Gin (Conservative)

Voting for a loser doesn't bother me in the slightest. As a bi-national, I have voted for John Anderson, Eugene McCarthy, and Walter Mondale, mostly because of Geraldine.

So, what'll it be, blogosphere? Libertarian or Marxist-Leninist?

Smells like a Contempt rat to me.

Or it might be a BQ dirty trick, since the incumbent could lose his seat to NDP Boivin - who once held the riding of Gatineau for the Libs. These allegations against Boivin have been raised in the past and she has clearly stated that they are unfounded.

Montreal newspaper Le Devoir reported Tuesday that Boivin did not actually leave the [Liberal] party for ideological reasons as she has previously stated, but because she hired a woman to work in her office the Liberals say was her same-sex partner and then refused to acknowledge she had broken the rules. [...]

Boivin flatly denied the allegations, saying that she knows all the rules and she never broke them. “These anonymous sources should come out of the shadows and have the courage to defend these allegations,” Boivin said in a statement on Tuesday, where she also announced her intention to defend her integrity and give legal notice to Le Devoir and the journalist who wrote the story. [...]

NDP officials say that was always their understanding of why she joined their party, noting she had voted with them – and against the Liberals – on votes like the missile defense system and legislation concerning the right to strike. [...]

Boivin told a news conference in Gatineau on Tuesday that she has been consistent in saying no every time she has been asked whether she had hired a same-sex partner to work in her office, a question that came from both the Liberals and the NDP. Boivin noted that she gave the same answer to [Toronto] Star reporter Richard J. Brennan when he asked her about the rumour in the past.

Brennan has written previously about the BQ and his language suggests that he is not sympathetic to that party - nor to the NDP.

Le Devoir has been relentlessly investigating Contempt Party candidates for their affiliations to extreme rightwing and fundamentalist religious groups during this federal election. This may have led to pressure on the editorial board to "balance" this reporting by publishing something dodgy about an Opposition party's candidate, particularly one who might be endangering a BQ incumbent's prospects for re-election.

Canadian politics have shifted; hateful political tactics increasingly replicate the polarized ambiance in the US. We can thank the Contempt Party and its leader, Emperor Stevie Spiteful for importing these toxic substances.

At this point, I'm thinking that someone close to the BQ or the Cons is the source for this contemptible product of trash journalism. BTW, the ADQ, which has formed an alliance of convenience with the CPC and Alberta's Wild Rose Party is not known for supporting gay and lesbian human rights.

And also: Count on Norm Spector to get it right ... NOT!

Too: The NDP's knee-jerk response to the attack on their candidate is short-sighted and not very politically astute, imho.

It's Over, Jack

For sleazeball politicians, women's rights are always negotiable. Or at least, a political football.

But I never thought the Fucking NDP® would sink to this.

Here's the full text of the press release:

Reality check: Ignatieff record doesn’t match words on women’s right to choose

April 17, 2011

Michael Ignatieff today professed his personal support for abortion access.

What he didn’t tell the crowd gathered at his town hall in Vancouver? In December, ten Liberal MPs stood up in favour of a Conservative Private Member’s Bill that risked criminalizing abortion providers and promoted an anti-choice agenda.

Those Liberals are:
Kevin Lamoureux
Ruby Dhalla
John McKay
Dan McTeague
Paul Szabo
Alan Tonks
Jim Karygiannis
Gurbax Malhi
Albina Guarnieri
Lawrence MacAulay

In fact, when the Liberal caucus introduced a motion to guarantee a “full range” of family planning options in Canada’s G8 commitments to Child and Maternal Health last March, their own members caused the motion to fail. Mr Ignatieff left this fact out today when he spoke about the G8 initiative.

Some of that is true. Those ten Fucking Harper Liberals® did vote in favour of Rod Bruinooge's lying POS bill, C-510, supposedly to penalize 'coerced' abortions.

And, yes, the Fucking Liberals® did screw up the no-brainer vote against the Cons' hypocritical 'maternal health without family planning' initiative.

But as the CBC's own Reality Check points out, Iggy was there for the second and voted against it.

But [Iggy] did specify what his position is on abortion and indicated that not everyone in his caucus shares his view.

He's OK with that because, as he explained it, abortion is an issue of conscience.

"I want you to know what my position, the position of most of my party is," he said Sunday.

"I say most for a reason. We're talking about abortion, these are issues of conscience. A democratic society that truly respects freedom of belief, and freedom of opinion, cannot compel in matters of abortion," he said.

Ignatieff's position by the way is that he believes in defending a woman's right to choose and that there should be public funding support for "the full gamut" of women's reproductive health services, both at home and overseas, he said Sunday.

I do NOT agree with Iggy's position that choice is a conscience issue. It is a human rights issue.

But these are Fucking Liberals® we're talking about here. They are the poster children for 'Opportunistic Politicians R Us'.

I expected better of the Fucking NDP®.

With the continuing attacks on the Liberals, rather than joining forces with them to defeat a common enemy, the Fucking NDP® was fast losing my respect.

Now, with this totally sleazy move, they've lost my vote.

That's it. It's over between us, Jack.

Until the Fucking NDP® finds its conscience again and loses Jumping Jack Flash as leader, I'm outta there.

Luckily, in my riding, the Con has less chance than a snowball in hell. So I'm holding my nose and voting Fucking Liberal®.

You can all pick yourselves off the floor now.

They Do It Because They Can

While I've been consumed by the Canadian federal election, I've found time to be dismayed by the idiotic -- and endless -- brouhaha over abortion going on in the Excited States.

If you've heard screeching about the Tea Baggers' crusade to defund Planned Parenthood and wondered how it turned out, Katha Pollitt writing in the Guardian has a summary.

The headlines are all about how the Democrats refused to cave to Republican demands to remove funding from Planned Parenthood and saved the day for women's reproductive health – at least until September, when the GOP and its media spokespeople will crank up their misogynistic fog machine all over again.

It's hard to see how they'd go further: Arizona's Jon Kyl claimed on the floor of the house that "90% of what Planned Parenthood does is abortions". It's actually about 3%, and his office later said his statement was "not intended to be factual". Rush Limbaugh claimed that "Planned Parenthood is a money-laundering operation for the Democrat party". Glenn Beck said that only "hookers" use Planned Parenthood. In fact, one out of every five women has visited a PP clinic, including this writer.

(Stephen Colbert picked up on the 'not intended' bit and tweeted outrageous statements with that hashtag. Others joined in and it went, as they say, viral. Colbert reports on it here.)

Getting back to the abortion story. . .

The Democrats did cave on one of the Tea Baggers' demands, though. The city of Washington, DC, cannot use its own money to fund abortions for poor women on Medicaid.

Why did they do this?

Because they could.

The U.S. Constitution allows for the creation of a special district to serve as the permanent national capital. The District is therefore not a part of any U.S. state and is instead directly overseen by the federal government.
. . .

Washington, D.C., is governed by a mayor and a 13-member city council. However, the United States Congress has supreme authority over the city and may overturn local laws. Residents of the District therefore have less self-governance than residents of the states. The District has a non-voting, at-large Congressional delegate, but no senators. D.C. residents could not vote in presidential elections until the ratification of the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1961.

A spokesperson for D.C. Planned Parenthood clinic says the ban will not prevent abortions, just delay them while poor women find the dough -- $400 for a first trimester procedure -- so abortions will be later, more expensive, more stressful.

Pollitt says:

This point has been made so often, to so little effect, that I sometimes wonder if the anti-choice plan is not actually to prevent abortion but simply to make it as awful as possible for the woman. Many of the 370-plus anti-abortion bills now wending their way through state legislatures are simply about creating misery, anxiety and fear – forcing women to view ultrasounds, see anti-choice counsellors, listen to scripts claiming falsely that abortions cause breast cancer and infertility, and wait, wait, wait for their procedures.

'As awful as possible.'

Yup.

So, why did the Democrats cave on this?

Because they had to.

The Rethuglicans have a MAJORITY in the House and can shriek and lie and stomp their little feet and, in fact, cause the entire federal government to shut down if they don't get their way.

Is this starting to sound familiar to our Canadian readers?

Stephen Harper says he will not re-open the abortion issue even if he gets a majority.

You believe that? His base doesn't. They're going to turn out in droves to ensure that he gets his majority so that abortion, equal marriage, capital punishment, etc etc etc, will all be very much open issues.

And what will the Fucking Useless Opposition® do?

Shriek. And snivel. And wave their arms around.

What can we do to prevent this?

Vote strategically.

Remember, the Contempt Party of Canada is the natural home of bullies and liars.

Stephen Harper is lying. And the next government -- if it's a majority -- will be the biggest bully this country has ever suffered. They'll do it Because They Can.

Don't like that quote?

There's plenty more where that one came from.

Rusty Idols wrote a powerful post, well written and researched.

Add Dr Dawg's piece about the Contempt Party's shrieks of injury, it's a one-two gut punch to the Cons' self-righteousness.

You can almost imagine the Con Attack Parrots™© screeching: "But, but, but, but ... even if it was our party that lowered the bar, with regard to attack ads and that provided Parliamentary reports replete with words out of context and fudged info, we're the only ones who can do it! Those are OUR MISRULES!"

eh. I left a comment at Rusty's and the word verification was "plizeday" - which will shurely be the very special cracker jack plize MinJKenney will get on May 2nd - "Surplise! You're out of a job!"

That's Spring Spheres to you, bunny!

Every year I find a news item or an urgent issue that inspires a post about Easter.

In 2011, this has to be the one.

A teenager volunteering at a Seattle elementary school was apparently told to use the politically correct name “spring spheres” when she tried giving kids plastic Easter eggs filled with candy.

But a Seattle school board spokesperson told the Star it has not been able to confirm whether the incident actually happened.

“They said I could do it as long as I called the treats ‘spring spheres.’ I couldn’t call them Easter eggs,” a 16-year-old named Jessica told a Seattle radio station.

Ah, "political correctness", a term now pejoratively used by those who are too intellectually lazy, too ideologically religious or too politically entrenched to accept a challenge to their bigotry.

The incident above sounds like a humour-challenged fundamentalist misunderstood a comment or invented one to create the perception that there's some anti-christian "War on Easter" being waged.

That's actually quite amusing, given the pagan origins of Easter and the christians' systemic appropriation of beliefs and traditions that pre-date the alleged resurrection of their saviour.

Consider the squeamishness of RWNJ (right wing nut jobs) when certain words from *down there* are uttered publicly. From here:

At one point [Democratic State Representative Scott] Randolph suggested that his wife "incorporate her uterus" to stop Republicans from pushing measures that would restrict abortions. Republicans, after all, wouldn't want to further regulate a Florida business.

Apparently the GOP leadership of the House didn't like the one-liner.

They told Democrats that Randolph is not to discuss body parts on the House floor.

This led to a hysterically witty tweet campaign, in response to the Republican Stoopidity, with evocative Twitter hashtags: #uterati #GOPnames4uterus #OMGuterus #uterusmovielines, and more.

And also. The Raging Grannies sing out in their typical fashion.

Speaking of eggs ...