Why Do We Even Bother to Blog? Part 1

In a recent rant on the CONTempt Party government's compulsive spending of our money on pure propaganda, we gave a shout-out to Stephen Lautens for graphic help in the form of another of his wicked Demotivational Conservative Posters.

He graciously complied.




There. Says it all.

M408: Totally Bogus

In previous blogposts here on private member's bill M408, the condemnation of sex selection, aka The Latest Backdoor Attempt to Legislate on Abortion, we've noted that it is sheer, cynical posturing coming from a member of the CONtempt Party.

The CONs have nothing but contempt for women. For starters, just look at the list of women's organizations whose funding has been cut or ended by them.

Today, I decided to have a look at Mark Warawa's history on matters relating to his new hobby, 'protecting girls'.

I mean, there are tons of fetus fetishizing Cons, why pick him as the front man for this little ploy?

At Campaign Lie, he gets a Double Plus Good rating.

At Rate Parliament, he's got two comments presumably from constituents, neither complimentary.

At Open Parliament, we learn that his favourite word is 'environment', which makes sense. He's chair of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development.

Searching Open Parliament for his recorded actions and statements, we find 306 pages going back to the beginning of his MP life in 2004. The record consists of petitions (back in the day, lots of them on 'traditional marriage', now on sex selection) and acres of time-keeping at environment committee.

A search of those 306 pages with the keyword 'women' turns up a measly two pages.

Most of those references are in the stock phrase, 'men and women', or its more enlightened variant, 'women and men'.

Only two pertained to women specifically.

Here he is on REAL Women on September 28, 2006.

Mr. Speaker, hearing the comments like meanspirited, if the Liberals were in government they would raise the GST back up because they voted against that. They voted against providing parents the choice in child care. They want to take back that $100 a month for children. That would be meanspirited.

I have a question that relates to the comments that have been made about REAL Women. REAL Women is going to be coming to the committee. I am looking for some wisdom from the member who just spoke. I have been on committees for many years. My understanding is that when a delegation is coming to a committee that the committee is open-minded and the committee is prepared to listen to delegates that come and dialogue in order to learn.

However, when we have the chairperson of a committee publicly ridiculing a delegation that is about to come, like REAL Women, I have real concerns that democracy may be under attack. We hear rhetoric now and heckling. Is that a good approach for a delegation coming? I would like to hear an answer.

And here's a snippet from his glurgey support for Woodworth's Wank on September 21, 2012.

We need to protect women's rights but we also must protect everyone's rights, the rights of women, children, adults and all human rights.

Awww, isn't that sweet? 'We need to protect women's rights. BUT'.

BUT. Maybe he was one of the renegade seven Cons who supported the truly 'pro-life' private member's bill that sought to provide cheaper life-saving drugs for poor countries. After all, our pal Maurice Vellacott voted in favour of it.

Nope.

This is precisely how bankrupt the CONtempt Party is on gender-related issues.

This guy is the best they could come up with to front M408.

This is how totally bogus M408 is.

Of hunger strikes, CON pigs tweeting about bacon, and #IdleNoMore

As I stood on Parliament Hill in solidarity with #IdleNoMore activists and protesters I was reminded that the ancestors of those whose revendications I supported, taught my ancestors how to survive the harsh winters of Turtle Island.

Were it not for the extraordinary generosity that the Anishinabek, Cree, Abenaki and perhaps even Iroquois peoples extended to Europeans, settlement after settlement would have succumbed to the challenges and dangers the natural environment posed.  Famine, and diseases attributed to malnutrition, killed many colonists.

This is particularly ironic since Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence has chosen starvation as the means to express the urgency of a meeting between Harper, the Governor General and First Nations leaders (including Spence). She is putting her very life on the line.

Using self-starvation is one form of immolation that has been tactically deployed throughout history.  This strategy, the very embodiment of explicit resistance and defiance expressed through systematic physical, emotional and intellectual commitment to die, in the hope of reaching a collective goal, was particularly well exploited by Bobby Sands and other Irish republican prisoners - convicted paramilitary members of the Army - during the 1981 Irish hunger strike. 

Sands started refusing food on 1 March 1981; he died 66 days later. Other prisoners agreed to join the strike at intervals, which helped create publicity as increasing numbers steadily deteriorated over several months.  The prisoners' aim was to achieve recognition as prisoners of war as opposed to being treated as criminals, though the Washington Post reported the reason for the strike was to provoke international publicity.

The strategic use of self-imposed starvation as a political strategy is not unanimously acclaimed. While self-immolation by fire (Afghanistan, Tibet, Maghreb) is certainly more spectacular and *newsworthy* to the corporate media as they can report the event and not dwell on the motives behind such action, a hunger strike offers a longer process that allows the individual to reflect upon the gravity of the choice, and to enlist supporters for the goals envisioned. It is nonetheless just as deadly.

Predictably, members of the CONtempt party have reacted with derision to Chief Spence's decision.  Though infested with porcine individuals who can barely fit 4 to an elevator, the cpc *base* opinionates that most Indigenous people are "well-fed".  And yet, only a few members of First Nations communities are prosperous in that gross "well-fed Con pigs at the trough" way.

Even the flak who cranks out tweets for PMSHithead got into the spirit of Xmas the CPC as it acts in the House of Commons during Question Period.

Harper's ancestry (and the familial karma it suggests) does not leave me hopeful that his 99 sizes-too-small Grinch heart will respond to Chief Spence's ultimatum.

 


Photograph of Dzawada'enuxw First Nations supporting #IdleNoMore, via @godammitkitty and @SherryBGood.

A wealth of documentation is found at the FB page (no registration required) for Indigenous Peoples Issues and Resources - the leading source for news, information, articles, videos, and more on indigenous peoples from around the world. Lincoln (whose Spielbergian biopic Harper and his entourage raved about) story about the hanging of 38 Dakota Sioux on December 26 1862, details here.)

Photo of Harper, from here.

Another Majority of Vandals?

Despite what the CONs say, Canada is a progressive country.

Yet, with our fucked-up electoral system, the majority vote is split so that the CONtempt Party squeaks in.

This must stop.

Look at yesterday's by-election results.

In Calgary Centre, the CON got 36.9% of the vote while other (variously progressive) parties combined for 61%. Numbers sound familiar?

They should. They are very close to the overall ranking in the 2011 federal election.

A party with less than 40% support is now vandalizing a progressive country to the shock and disgust of the majority.

I am not a partisan but I was delighted to hear someone actually in politics say out loud what ordinary people are increasingly focussed on.

We must stop the CONservative vandals.

Liberal MP Joyce Murray launched her bid for the leadership of the federal Liberal Party on Monday with a call for “one-time” only cooperation among the three major opposition parties in the next federal election in order to defeat Prime Minister Harper and bring in lasting reform to Canada’s electoral system.

Pointing out Mr. Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) and his Conservatives won a majority government with only 39.6 per cent of the vote, Ms. Murray (Vancouver Quadra, B.C.) said her campaign will include a new proposal for the kind of cooperation discussed since the 2011 election by Liberals, New Democrats and Green Party figures.

Many, including former NDP leadership candidate Nathan Cullen (Skeena-Bulkley, Valley, B.C.), have said the only way to defeat Mr. Harper’s election machine is by joining forces to field only one candidate from all three opposition parties in ridings the Conservatives won with less than 50 per cent of the vote.

A one-time only deal. Worked out at the riding level. Perhaps with a run-off vote among the non-CON candidates in advance to determine the best chance to beat the CONs.

Then, election reform.

Now. How do we do this? We've got two years.

On Twitter, Sadie Tucker says she has been phoning and writing riding offices and talking to friends.

Let's get this show on the road. Canada cannot withstand another majority of vandals.

ADDED: Elsewhere our polyboggous (h/t deBeauxOs) bud, Mandos, has an interesting analysis of the mess Canadian politics is in and wonders if an Amerkican-style two-party system is inevitable.

ADDED: Pundit's Guide says it won't work. Lotta reasons, too. *sigh*

CONtemptuous, Weasel Words

This morning, I couldn't help but draw this to Babs' attention.

It was the ever-online-vigilence of @FrogsAreLovely and @PierreLucDaoust who brought it to my attention.

You may recall that last week Kay Mère wrote tedious fawning glurge about Rona Ambrose, stopping short of nominating her for a humanitarian award for all her alleged achievements in the name of girls.

Jymn blogged about Ambrose's claim about a UN award, as she once again appropriated Malala Yousafzai's name for her own glory.

This is why Harper's CONtempt party needs to employ hundreds of communication flunkies throughout their government to lie about their "accomplishments".  And Babs Kay, nicely paid by the NatPo

Faux-semblant, lying lies and Attack Parrot speaking points, uttered high and low.

On Father's Day and Pathological Liars

Tomorrow is Father's Day. My father's been dead for almost 35 years. He was, as they say, a colourful character -- raconteur, man-about-town.

And a pathological liar.

One story -- I got a million of them -- from when I was about 15. Parents had been divorced for years at this point and papa wanted to take the kids to his winter haunt in Jamaica, where, unaccountably, he hobnobbed with the pooh-bahs. Serious pooh-bahs -- polo-playing, Rover-driving pooh-bahs.

So there we were having lunch with pooh-bahs, when one of the ladies leaned over and said to me: 'Your father tells me you go to Havergal. Do you know my neighbour's daughter, Prissy McPriss?'

(Havergal, for the non-Torontonians out there, is a fancy-schmancy private girls' school, which, needless to say, I did NOT attend.)

'Ah,' I said, stalling (I am my father's daughter, after all). 'What grade is Prissy in?'

She named some grade and I said something airy like: 'Well, I'm in Grade X, and the grades don't really mix much. Does she play sports?'

Tales of field hockey ensued.

While this was going on, I looked over at papa. He was grinning at me. I'd passed some kinda test, obviously.

Having a pathological liar for a father has its downsides -- like being blindsided by a question at lunch in fucking Jamaica -- but it has its advantages too. My homeroom teacher in Grade 12 -- not at Havergal -- told me I had the best shit-detector he'd ever met.

Of course, nobody needs be a child of a pathological liar to identify the multiple steaming loads of crap in this story.

Happy Father's Day.

Self-Pitying Toews and victims of CON bullies

Rights and Democracy, the organization that Remy Beauregard gave his life to defend, has now been euthanized by the Harper government.

Meanwhile, the Vic Toews pity party goes on and on.

God's wrath is fickle and and unjust.

Remember when Vic Toews threw himself a pity party and nobody came?

Oh. Wait.

While no laws were broken, the Conservatives want to learn if anyone else was involved and if Carroll is being used as a scapegoat to protect key staffers. [...]

Toews also wants the committee to look into Liberal MP Justin Trudeau's role in the affair. He was one of the first to retweet the volleys to his followers.

"It's very clear Justin Trudeau is in vikileaks30 up to his neck," said Toews.

Opposition MPs say the Conservatives are hammering the vikileaks issue to change the channel on allegations of election fraud.

Pretty loose and cheap talk for a serial adulterer and sexual predator. CONtempt of Parliament - it's how the CPC rolls. Attack others for actions that they're guilty of advocating and practicing.

I hope Trudeau sues Toews for slander and defamation, though I suspect his generosity of spirit is greater that Vic's vile spleen.

Con "Mononcle" Garry gives high school girls advice.

Dianna Sakisheway wrote a scathing letter to Public Safety Minister Vic Toews this week. Her complaint stems from a speech Breitkreuz — known as the father of the legislation to repeal the long-gun registry — gave during a career day at Canterbury High School [in Ottawa] on March 7.

“I am outraged at the irresponsible conduct of the federal government in promoting gun violence to schoolchildren,” she wrote. “You have gone much too far.”

“Mr. Breitkreuz spent most of his allotted time discussing firearms and cited a Texas study that showed women who carry guns are less likely to get raped, including a specific number of women who avoided rape as they were armed,” Sakisheway wrote [...]

From here. Hmm, I wonder how Toews will react to that. If the teenage girl who babysat for his family had been armed with a gun, his political career might have been cut short.

So CPC MP Breikreuz agrees with DJ! that women should "Stand their ground"? Who would have guessed.

In other news relating to the "future" the Harper government has laid out for Canadian youth, the Flaherty budget has slashed, effective immediately, the operating grant contract it had with Katimavik.

The move comes as a surprise to the Katimavik organization, which says it has been kept in the dark about any upcoming cuts. Its National Director of Marketing and Communications Victoria Salvador has said, however, that the group is trying to diversify its funding in order to stay afloat.

Despite the Tories' determination to kill the program, the group expressed hope in a statement Thursday that lobbying the government can still save the program.

Katimavik expressed "extreme disappointment" over the funding decision and argued its purpose is more important than ever. "At a time when civic engagement and voter turnout are at an all-time low, when youth unemployment rates are double the national average, this is clearly the worst time to cut Katimavik," the group wrote.

In this tweet the author of the news item claimed: "One Tory told me today, they view it as a Liberal recruiting ground..." which begs the question where the CPC gets its own recruits: Fundamentalist christian churches? Reactionary school bullies? Armed forces rejects?

As Calgary Sun columnist Stephen Lautens observed: "Katimavik - creating young people too smart and kind for the Cons for 35 years."

Thoughts from an Unhappy Post-Partisan

A few thoughts on the NDP leadership.

First, Aaron Wherry offers us an opportunity to compare and contrast.

From Bob Rae:

“I want to offer my warm congratulations to Thomas Mulcair on winning the leadership contest in the New Democratic Party.  I know Mr. Mulcair well and look forward to working with him to ensure Parliament acts on behalf of all Canadians.

“I also want to congratulate the NDP for a successful leadership convention, particularly in opening up the selection process to Canadians across the country.

“I also want to salute Mme Nycole Turmel for the integrity she showed as Interim Leader of the NDP. Her grace was apparent as she courageously carried out her duties admirably in the wake of the tragic passing of Jack Layton.”

From the Contempt Party:

Today in Toronto, the NDP have chosen Thomas Mulcair to push their agenda of high taxes, high spending and less economic growth. Thomas Mulcair is an opportunist whose high tax agenda, blind ambition, and divisive personality would put Canadian families and their jobs at risk. Mulcair has said he would bring back a risky, job-killing carbon tax which would raise the price of everything – even though Canadians overwhelmingly rejected carbon taxes. Canadians can’t afford Mulcair’s dangerous economic experiments.

Also, Thomas Mulcair has vowed to bring back the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry, and his soft on crime positions would take Canada back to policies that put the rights of criminals ahead of those of victims. 

Canadians gave our government a strong mandate to create jobs and economic growth. For hard-working Canadian families looking for a government that will put them first, it is clear that the only choice is Stephen Harper’s Conservative government.

I am not a Dipper, but of all the contenders, I have to say Mulcair was my last choice.

Consider his position on marijuana.

Earlier in the campaign:

I also support the party’s existing policy on further decriminalising the possession of marijuana for any use with the goal to eliminate the influence of organised crime on the production and distribution of marijuana.

Later, asked again about decriminalization:

No. I think that that would be a mistake because the information we have right now is that the marijuana that’s on the market is extremely potent and can actually cause mental illness.

Mental illness? Seriously?

On the environment.

[Dewar] would also ban bulk water exports and took Thomas Mulcair to task on the issue for comments he made in support of such exports in 2004 as a Quebec Liberal environment minister.

OK, he may have changed his mind about that, but I'd like to hear him say so.

Now a really troublesome matter. Israel.

Independent Jewish Voices (Canada) has launched a video to challenge Thomas Mulcair's positions on Israel and Palestine. According to IJV, Mr. Mulcair's leadership campaign represents an electoral coalition with Canada's Israel Lobby.

Lorne Nystrom, the national co-chair of Mr. Mulcair's leadership campaign and a former long-time NDP MP, is likely familiar to many who follow federal politics. However, many NDP members may not be aware that Nystrom currently sits on the board of this country's major pro-Israel lobby group, which actively campaigns in support of the Israeli government's inhumane and repressive policies towards Palestinian and other non-Jewish citizens.

Finally, on cooperating with other parties to beat the fucking CONs:

One thing Mulcair is clear on is that he’ll go after Liberal supporters, but won’t work with the rival party.

“N.O.,” he told HuffPost. The NDP tried to form a coalition with the Liberals in 2008 and then the Grits “lifted their noses up on it,” Mulcair said.

The coalition experience taught Mulcair everything he needs to know about the Liberals. They’re untrustworthy and he said he’ll never work with them again, whether in a formal or informal coalition.

“The no is categorical, absolute, irrefutable and non-negotiable. It’s no. End of story. Full stop,” he said.

End of story? CON majorities for the foreseeable future.

As I say, I am not a Dipper. So that's it from me. For now.

Ladies: Send your menstrual detritus to MP Woodworth!

To quote the fightin' words of JJ at unrepentant old hippie, that would be: CPC MP Stephen Woodworth, Pride of Kitchener’s K of C and another crotch-nosing fetus fetishizing Womb Cop who believes government should be juuuuust small enough to crawl up your vagina and police your uterus.

Woodworth, who is a fundamentalist Catholic who believes "life" starts at the moment of conception, wants to police Canadian women's sexual and reproductive autonomy by criminalizing abortion. This is what we should all do, so he can determine through forensic analysis how many zygotes & embryos we are sluttishly allowing to slip out of our bodies every month.

Depending on the "strength" of your menstrual flow, you should be able to cram all your pads and strained uterine detritus - such as suspicious clots - into one 9 x 12 bubble-wrap-lined enveloppe.

Mail it to Stephen Woodworth, c/o the House of Commons, Ottawa K1A 0A6. You don't have to pay postage to send MPs or the PM (hint, hint) mail.

It sounds gross, but if we don't ACT UP and speak out against Woodworth's project, this is what may soon happen in Canada.

Workers at the Stamford wastewater treatment facility on Harbor View Avenue discovered a dead human fetus while sifting through sewage Saturday morning.

Police do not know exactly how old the fetus is or its sex.

The fetus has been taken to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, where an autopsy will be conducted, Lupinacci said. Police plan to investigate further after they have received a report from the medical examiner.

"We're hoping on some DNA and we're going to have to somehow check pregnancies and whatnot," Lupinacci said. "It could even possibly be a miscarriage. We don't even know if it's a legal fetus at this point."

A fetus is considered viable if the pregnancy lasts beyond 24 to 25 weeks, said Dr. John Morris, a gynecologist who practices in Stamford. A fetus that is about 4 inches in length is probably pre-viable, meaning it most likely could not survive outside the mother's body, he said.

"Viability is kind of a gray area," Morris said. "Most people will give you between 24 and 25 weeks as an age limit. Before that, the lungs won't be developed enough and you have all other sorts of issues."

Nobody in their right correct mind would want this investigated, you say? You would be wrong.

We cannot allow the CONtempt Party to criminalize women, health care providers and abortion.

Today's CPC election fraud news.

Excellent investigative journalism from the CBC's Terry Milewski. Yes, that Terry.

An investigation by CBC News has turned up voters all over Canada who say the reason they got robocalls sending them to fictitious polling stations was that they'd revealed they would not vote Conservative.

Although the Conservative Party has denied any involvement in the calls, these new details suggest that the misleading calls relied on data gathered by, and carefully guarded by, the Conservative Party.

Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand announced Thursday that he now has "over 700 Canadians from across the country" who allege "specific circumstances" of fraudulent or improper calls. CBC News examined 31 ridings where such calls have been reported and found a pattern: those receiving those calls also had previous calls from the Conservative Party to find out which way they would vote.

Tim McCoy of the riding of Ottawa-Vanier was one of those who complained to Elections Canada. He received a bogus recorded message pretending to be from Elections Canada — but he also had two previous calls from the Conservatives.

"They did call me back from the Conservative Association and ask if they could count on my support," said McCoy, who declined to pledge his vote. He thinks that's why someone tried to mislead him.

"It looks like a hijacking of the democratic process," he added. "I would like to know who made the call pretending to be from Elections Canada and I don't really care which way the finger points. I would like to know."

Elections Canada says it never calls voters at all. However, it is only now emerging that calls impersonating Elections Canada followed previous calls by Conservative workers asking which way voters were leaning. That suggests that the "Elections Canada" calls, which are illegal, came from people with access to data gathered by the Conservative Party, which carefully controls access to it.

Asked about that, party spokesman Fred Delorey had no comment and declined an interview.

More, at the Globe&Mail.

Oddly enough, the Sun newspapers have not provided similar in depth coverage of Elections Canada investigations into complaints of voter suppression. StunTV midiot Levant's notion of "hard news" is to rant about the legitimacy of the 31,000 complaints filed with EC.

Insanity from CON senator.

The CPC propaganda machine, Stevie's Politburo aka the PMO and its hundreds of minions cranking it out for ministers, is showing signs of stress fatigue.

From here:

"Let me ask you this, honourable senators: If environmentalists are willing to accept money from Martians, where would they draw the line on where they receive money from? Would they take money from Al Qaeda, the Hamas or the Taliban?," Senator Don Plett, the party's former president, asked in the Senate.

"It's jaw-droopingly bizarre," Devon Page, executive director of EcoJustice told The Huffington Post Canada late Tuesday.

"I have no idea where this comes from. To me this defies reason, logic and all of this is so bizarre I have a hard time responding to it. To me, it's a good example of why we need an elected Senate," he said. "They are being irresponsible, I think they are not representing the Canadian public, I think the Senate is disassociating itself from reasoned debate."

Plett, who was appointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2009, made the comments during an inquiry into the foreign funding of Canadian charities.

Thanks to the Harper CONtempt Party, our Parliament now features scenes of unbridled fuckwittery, almost as riveting as the gonzo journalism writing of JJ's beloved Hunter Thompson.

Harper government: it's all about the dog-and-pony show.

According to DND documents obtained by the Ottawa Citizen, the final cost of a military pomp & circumstance display on Parliament Hill was more than double the original estimate.

The Privy Council Office instructed the Canadian Forces on Oct. 2 to begin preparations for the victory celebration, well before the end of the Libyan conflict, according to the records. The PCO outlined exactly what it wanted and the military complied with a Parliament Hill celebration that included a flypast of aircraft and a parade of Canadian Forces personnel. PCO also asked for and received “special inclusion and recognition of LGen. Charles Bouchard,” the Canadian commander of the mission.

The request, which was also seen as coming from Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office, sent senior military planners scrambling and within days they came up with various scenarios, including recognition of the mission at both the local level and at the national level with a Parliament Hill parade.

No doubt Harper CONservatives rolled tape during the photo opportunity which cost taxpayers $850,000. It's all window dressing for their 2015 election campaign, where they'll accuse their opponents of "hating the troops" although every CPC MP voted against a motion in the House of Commons that would have saved Veterans Affairs from budget cuts.

The motion was defeated by a margin of 147 to 122. All opposition MPs voted in support of the motion, while the Conservatives voted unanimously against it.

"There's so many guys that have died in the last conflict for this government, and the government has more or less spit in the veterans' faces," veterans advocate Dan Slack said following the vote.

"It's bullshit." Dozens of veterans representing every major conflict Canada has participated in since the Second World War packed the House of Commons galleries Tuesday night to watch the vote. Some were very aged, some came in wheelchairs or on crutches, but all proudly displayed their medals.

So. Close to a million dollars to make CONservative politicians look *victorious*.

And ZERO from the CONs for our veterans of peacekeeping forces, military interventions and wars: WWII, Korean, Gulf, Yugoslav, Afghanistan and Libyan.

So, it seems Toews has a reputation as a bully ...

A piece in the Winnipeg Free Press goes a long way towards explaining the media silence around the serial adulterer and, as we learned also sex predator, Vic Toews - minister of Public Safety in the Harper government.

We've blogged about the incidents that were not published in the media, even those on public record and more, about Toews.

Then, there's Toews' violation of the Manitoba Elections Act. We've come to expect that PMSHithead will appoint lying, unscrupulous CONs to his cabinet, since he did appoint a felon as his minister of Justice.

The Winnipeg Free Press piece is instructive. Who would guess Toews has no impulse control, sending unsollicited, hectoring email blasts?

This is a politician who has become renowned among a small audience of Manitoba political junkies for sending out long, rambling, emails to his "supporters," in which he angrily attacks opposition MPs, journalists and anyone else with the temerity to disagree with him. As a regular target of these emails, I have never responded to the tortured logic or his tenuous grasp of the facts. He is entitled to have his say. If anyone asked me for a reaction to his rants, I merely directed them to take note of the time the emails were sent -- which more often than not was somewhere around 3 a.m. -- and then expressed my regret that I had written something that caused Toews to lose sleep.

But that was before Toews discovered Twitter, a more immediate, pervasive and, we have come to learn, less thoughtful way of venting your most volatile thoughts the moment they burst into your skull. Toews slowly began to move from the innocuous to the abusive in his emails. He taunted the opposition, howled when they disagreed with him. When the opposition voted against a Tory crime bill, he accused them of helping child kidnappers. [...]

On Thursday, he alleged that NDP MP Paul Dewar, a candidate for the leadership of that party, was behind a campaign to exploit the details of the divorce file. This was based on the revelation that a provincial NDP staffer, who happens to volunteer on Dewar's leadership campaign, had examined the divorce file.

Toews is now in full attack mode on Twitter, lambasting opposition parties for not supporting his bid to get a full parliamentary committee investigation of @Vikileaks and the Anonymous videos. [...]

Unfortunately, this is where Toews lacks any perspective on his own tenuous place in the universe. If his reputation has been tarnished, it has been by his own hand as much as anyone's. His closest political advisers pleaded with him to stop sending overnight email blasts, which they viewed as conduct unbecoming a federal cabinet minister. Those same advisers can hardly be pleased with his stream-of-consciousness Twitter activity.

If tough journalists were intimidated by the minister's fury, imagine what it must have been like for a 17 year old girl. The former teenaged babysitter for the Toews family, who caved in to pressure from her employer and had sex with him, would well know how unpleasant refusing Vic's demands would be.

ADDED: a tweet from Errol Mendes reminded me that Toews, a swinish CONjob, once called internationally respected Justice Louise Arbour *disgraceful*.

Beyond STFU!

This is another chapter in the PMSHithead "Yippee ki-way mother f**ker!" saga.

Do you remember how, not so long ago, Senator Nancy Ruth Jackman got herself into one hot mess because she suggested to indignant women's organizations who felt threatened by the Harper government's big Stalinist boot that they should STFU?

That was pre-G8 and G20 police rule.

So if you heard on the news that an environmental activist was visited by the RCMP, days after he phoned up the Harper Politburo PMO to express his concern, you'd guess he was some mouthy 20-something radical, right?

You'd be wrong.

More CON fraudulent fun with phones.

It appears that the CPC has engaged in other scam practices with phones. It's not enough that companies were paid (more on that below) to contact voters and *prank* them with harassing calls, while pretending to be the other parties.

It engineered a campaign to call voters on Election Day, claim to be representing Elections Canada and deliberately direct them to a wrong location that was ^NOT a polling station. This Rovian tactic is called voter suppression. It is a criminal act for people to impersonate EC staff.

Now it appears the CONtempt Party has been trying to pressure and scam vulnerable elders to donate money to it. From Le Devoir:

[...] voters complained that they had been asked relentlessly by the Conservative Party to donate, being told - wrongly - that they had promised to pay $ 200.

This happened to Fernand Coulombe of Montmagny. The man, who turns 90 in September, said he was called "three or four times" by a lady of the Conservative Party last June - after the general elections in May. She told him to pay $200. because she he had promised to pay this contribution.

"She told me that I promised that. I did not promise anything! I do not even know her, and besides, I did not vote for them, "said Mr. Coulombe in an interview with Le Devoir.

In addition, Mr. Coulombe was mailed a letter from the Conservative Party, addressed to him and dated June 3, 2011. Under the party's logo, it is written in bold: "Thank you for your generous pledge of: $ 200.00." In the upper right corner of the document appears a bar code, a series of identification codes and the phone number of Mr. Coulombe. The man lives in a long term care facility. [...]

The man does not understand how his personal information was used by the CPC. "It may have taken my name in the phone book." He insists he voted for the Liberal Party all his life and his family is well aware of this party loyalty.

Mr Coulombe brought his concerns to his MP, NDP François Lapointe who knows of others who were subjected to this scam. Lapointe is taking out advertisements in the riding's community papers to encourage other people who were subjected to this scam to come forward. He will help facilitate their formal complaints to Elections Canada.

A reminder: Lapointe's riding was the site of a curious reassignment of voter ballots on May 2nd. This was only discovered when he demanded a recount.

The payment scam: Andrew Prescott paid RackNine directly for robocalls done on behalf of his CPC candidate during the federal election. How many other CON supporters in other ridings, other campaigns, did the same? No paper trail, no reporting this as a campaign contribution.

Added: link to MacLean's coverage of the scam.

Double Whammy: Election Fraud + In & Out?

Last November, the CPC and its fundraising organ pleaded guilty to their violations of the Canada Elections Act.

Senator Finley is a lying Attack Parrot™© flapping his gums and trying to divert attention from his CONtempt Party's record of illegal and criminal practices, in light of alleged voter suppression and election fraud activities during the 2011 campaign.

Last week Le Devoir's Hélène Buzzetti did some good old-fashioned investigative journalism and produced information that seems to demonstrate that the CPC did it again. Here's an adaptation of her findings, in English.

Using the telephone – what else for this kind of story? - she established that money that helped pay for the Conservatives’ automated robocalls went through Quebec.

She called up Quebec conservative candidates one after another.She had them singing like canaries in a mine after a while.

Bertin Denis, defeated Conservative candidate in Rimouski-Neigette-Témiscouata-Les Basques, (that’s a trip in itself) admitted his campaign organization had paid $ 15 000.01 to the Toronto-based Responsive Marketing Group (RMG.)

Bertin Denis laid it out plainly. He was no more than a "mail box" for paying phone call bills to other parts of Canada. The party had sent him $55,000 but he had to write out a cheque to RMG for $15,000.01.

Money in, money out. (Sounds familiar?)He couldn’t remember what the cheque to RMG was for.

There appears to be a number of Québecois CPC candidates who claimed expenses that were actually in support of activities done for the national campaign, and not for their riding. Robocalls support.

We have to keep the pressure up; it appears CONs are currently trying to discredit the Elections Canada investigation with every Rovian tactic at their disposal.

Many politically engaged bloggers who don't support the Contempt Party for a multitude of reasons and voted for other parties were puzzled that the Bruce Carson corruption story didn't sink Stevie's boat.

The Toronto Star's Susan Delacourt provides some insight into how the CPC accomplished that, in her excellent article:

Quoting from StatsCan figures, Soudas said that while 92 per cent of Canadians claimed to watch TV news and 70 per cent claimed to read newspapers, in fact the real figures are around 50 per cent for both.

This is why, Soudas explained, Conservatives concentrated their advertising buys on more popular, non-news TV shows. It’s also why the Conservatives pay close attention to giving citizens the same clear, strong imagery that Canadians are accustomed to seeing in their consumer brands.

No matter how hard the Cons try to deodorize this corruption and hide their criminal actions, their *brand* still stinks.

Election Rigging for Dummies

Woo-hoo! Our bud Alison at Creekside just made this for DAMMIT JANET!

Aren't we lucky!

Was there CON election fraud in the ballot counting too?

Before the 2011 federal election, I wondered if the CPC would try to control the results of voting in key ridings by infiltrating Elections Canada with their stooges and goons.

It's not difficult to get hired on as poll clerk or even DRO in ridings that have isolated poll stations.

Which may account for the curious case of 100 ballots for the NDP candidate being "accidentally" assigned to the GPC candidate, in Montmagny-L'Islet-Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup.

The CON candidate had been declared the winner, until the NDP demanded a recount.

The defeated CON's churlish, sore loser behaviour is predictable, particularly if he'd been assured his victory was *in the bag* thanks to post-voting fraud support.

Perhaps such "accidents" account for some of the surprising and inexplicable CON "victories" in the GTA. A few 100 voting ballots "reassigned" here and there - it all adds up to a fraudulent "majority".

Elections Canada should be MASSIVELY pressured to do a recount of votes cast in those key ridings.

The photograph came from this article which describes how Citizen Observer volunteers in Russia are being trained to spot election fraud.

Self-Pitying Toews

What if Vic Toews threw himself a pity party and nobody came?

Oh. Wait.

While no laws were broken, the Conservatives want to learn if anyone else was involved and if Carroll is being used as a scapegoat to protect key staffers. [...]

Toews also wants the committee to look into Liberal MP Justin Trudeau's role in the affair. He was one of the first to retweet the volleys to his followers.

"It's very clear Justin Trudeau is in vikileaks30 up to his neck," said Toews.

Opposition MPs say the Conservatives are hammering the vikileaks issue to change the channel on allegations of election fraud.

Pretty loose and cheap talk for a serial adulterer and sexual predator. CONtempt of Parliament - it's how the CPC rolls. Attack others for actions that they're guilty of advocating and practicing.

I hope Trudeau sues Toews for slander and defamation.

The illustration was found here, also available in a larger format.