"Not intended to be a factual statement" ...

is a seven word expression for a lie.

It originated with the flunkey who was sent out to defend US Senator Jon Kyl's very public bald-faced lie, an outright fabrication that abortion was "well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does," a claim which a number of fact-checking organizations pointed out was drastically overstated; in reality, the figure is more like three percent.

Here in Canada, Contempt Party government ministers lie routinely; from Cashmere Tony to Airshow MacKay, the outrageous lies Cons spin to cover their corruption and their malfeasance never stop.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn said of the Stalinist Soviet Union: "In our country the lie has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the State."

Go directly to Dred Tory: Season's Creepings. Read it.

Oink, Oink, Oink: Cons are entitled to their entitlements!

At the rate it's going, the Contempt Party may soon set a record for the most patronage appointments ever produced by a leader who once railed at, and denounced the practice.

Con-gratulations, Stevie! Long live irony and reformaTory greediness.

The Sixth Estate has been valiantly trying to keep up with Stevie's largesse with the public purse.

Dr Dawg recently wrote about the Con Jobs' Patronage Poster Boy, Mike Duffy.

The most recent rash of appointments is intended to keep defeated Con candidates well fatted and to reward the party faithful who expect and hope one day they'll be snuffling in the trough alongside Larry Smith and Josée Verner.

Natural welfare "queens"

The "Welfare Queen" moniker is an American meme with both racist and sexist components that was intended to arouse the ire of ordinary people against small-time free riders in order to distract from the long-standing effort to make it possible for big-time free riders to get away with robbing the American public blind.

What does this have to do with Canada?

We keep hearing that the "political center" of Canada is shifting Westward, and that Ontario's manufacturing economy is in the doldrums and that it is a have-not province. And we keep hearing that this is fuelling the political shift to the right. If so, this situation is merely confirmation of something we already knew: that right-wing populist politics is only possible in the presence of large-scale free riding. In this case, the free riding is on oil, oil, and more oil---because it no longer pays to be an actual entrepreneur in (foolishly) export-dependent Canada.

The Canadian right is all about being the true welfare "queens"*---the welfare "queens" of nature, of the dinosaur plants that died so long ago. Of course, it is always the case that we living things subsist on and affect the world in unpredictable ways; but we must never pretend that it is anything other than what it is.

Now if there's anything that will fracture the Reformatory crypto-coalition, it is that fact: will Ontario and the Rest-of-Canada (relative to resource extracting provinces) share in that welfare-"queendom"? I thought that was taboo.

*In reality, welfare "kings" more than anything else.

Solberg regurgitates Con speaking points.

Monte Solberg may be the first ReformaTory Attack Parrot™© to get his party's propaganda in print, but he won't be the last.

The Con-fabulators can also rely on services provided by Blatchie - she who lectures journalists who presented first-person accounts of what they experienced at ground zero during the G-20 at the hands of riot police goons about professional standards - to repeat the truthiness that's fed to her.

Here, for example. And most memorably this report, where Blatchie submitted with impunity the big fat lies 'leaked' by her overlords.


Grand merci to our much-admired commenter Niles for the heads-up and his observations, always judicious.

They LIE! They lie, they lie, they lie, they lie!

It's the ReformaTory Anvil Chorus.

They LIE.

They lie they lie they lie THEY LIE!

While the Conservative government treats Rahim Jaffer publicly as a pariah, messages and calls between senior officials and the former MP over the past year show he was handled inside as a friend and even a "priority."

More than 60 pages of government documents obtained by The Canadian Press Wednesday paint a picture of a busy, cheerful businessman reaching out to people he knew within government. [...]

At least six ministerial offices were contacted by Jaffer over the past year, and that includes previously unknown communications with Public Works and the office of Diane Ablonczy, minister of state for seniors. The documents were tabled with the Commons government operations committee, and with the lobbying commissioner and some with the ethics commissioner.

In his emails, Jaffer was often describing renewable projects he was working on with his partner Patrick Glemaud, and the responses were swift and often personal.

From here.


They LIE.

They lie they lie they lie THEY LIE!

Oh, and make sure you take in the deliciously apt Monty Python skit over at Canadian Cynic: Adscam! Adscam, fer Chrissake! too.

Shrieeek!!! Where are the feminists???

Yesterday DAMMIT JANET! predicted that the Blogging Tories and other assorted Attack Parrots, acolytes and sycophants would chant, bleat and repeat, repeat, repeat the Speaking Points faxed to them by the ReformaTory spin doctors.

Today Canadian Cynic confirms that this is indeed the case in his blogpost Dear incredibly stupid Canadian conservatives.

The winning comment, indeed the observation that nails everything you ever wanted to know about Stevie Spiteful and his ReformaTory bullies' intrinsic approach to women in politics, belongs to sooey:

"I'm sure Feminists are to blame. After all, if there wasn't a Minister of State for the Status of Women, this never would have happened."

Help Divide the Right

As I grow increasingly gloomy about politics in Canada, I must say I'm mightily enjoying the ReThuglican meltdown in the Excited States. And the news just gets worse for the Republican National Committee.

The head of an influential social conservative organization urged members and supporters Wednesday to stop donating to the Republican National Committee and instead contribute to its own coffers or to candidates with like-minded goals.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, made the plea in his "Washington Update" column posted on the organization's Web site following the revelation that the RNC paid for a night out at a risque Hollywood nightclub.

"I've hinted at this before, but now I am saying it -- don't give money to the RNC," Perkins said in his column. "If you want to put money into the political process, and I encourage you to do so, give directly to candidates who you know reflect your values.

"Better yet, become a member of FRC Action and learn about the benefits it offers, including participating in the FRC Action PAC which can support candidates who will advance faith, family and freedom," he said.

Perkins is the latest social conservative leader to openly criticize RNC Chairman Michael Steele for allowing the controversial expenditure to happen under his watch.

Don't give the RNC money. Give it to this group.

So far, the new soft-money group, American Crossroads, has received commitments of almost $30 million and is seeking to raise a total of some $60 million to help dozens of Senate and House incumbents and challengers this fall, say three sources familiar with the new 527. In contrast, at the start of January, the Republican National Committee had only $8.4 million in the bank compared with the $22.8 million it had on had a year earlier when Steele was elected chairman.

So, I was wondering: how can I help that sort of move here?

Oh. Look: Rural Alberta is starting to turn on Progressive Conservatives.

So now the Highwoods constituency association last week sent a letter to the PC party head quarters accusing the government of "nearing the precipice of moral insolvency to govern."

Yowzer! That's strong language. (And it's also, alas, provincial. And the disgruntled will probably support Wild Rose Alliance, a party described as 'right of Attila the Hun'.)

Nonetheless, dirty laundry is being aired. And, even better, Alberta Cons are getting hit in the pocketbook too.

This is also evident as while the Party continued to make the highest amount of donations from corporations their membership renewals fell precipitously by over $58,000. When your party memberships only cost $5 a year it means that number is fairly alarming.

Alarming? Yee-haw!

Seems to me that humble (ahem) bloggers can help divide the right.

From hanging out at Free Dominion, I've learned that both the fiscally conservative and socially conservative are not happy with Stevie Peevie. For the former, he's spending way too much money, and for the second, he's not doing anything about their issues -- abortion and same-sex marriage.

I don't think the fiscal conservatives can be persuaded in any great numbers to vote for the evul tax-and-spend Liberals -- but maybe for the Greenies? I leave this to wonkier wonks than I.

But maybe the so-cons can be cajoled into at least keeping their chequebooks shut and staying away from the polls.

And there's another group -- libertarians. When it sinks in with them that their sons and daughters -- or themselves -- will get a mandatory six-month minimum prison sentence for as little as six pot plants, they may well stay home too.

So, let's get to work, progressive bloggers! In our blogs and in our lives, let's harp on keep pointing out that Stevie Peevie will NEVER reopen the abortion debate and that responsible adult taxpayers who get caught smoking a little recreational weed WILL go to prison.

ReformaTories: 'Nollige Bad'

Key word quietly.

The Conservative government is quietly cutting funding to hundreds of community groups and even hospitals that provide free Internet access to Canadians who might not otherwise have a chance to get online.

This will save pennies, relatively. But punishes job-seekers, homework-doers, poor people, and, weirdly, rural citizens.

This story needs to travel, as they say, far and wide. It speaks volumes about the ReformaTory mindset.

Frank Iacobucci and the Ides of March.

There is really no reason why former Supreme Court Justice Iacobucci would accept the Harper mission.

Except for the munnee - though various descriptions of his illustrious career indicate he made an early decision to forgo a lucrative practice of corporate law in Manhattan in favour of education and public service.

Surely the former judge knows that the theocratic ReformaTory government and its bullies are trying to buy time in order to delay any scrutiny regarding their actions on the Afghanistan detainee procedures as well as to purchase Iacobucci's credibility?

He'd do well to remember the words of Julius Caesar's wife, uttered on this fateful day, over 2,000 years ago.

"Don't go there, Franky, don't go!" - paraphrased ever so slightly from this famous Wayne & Shuster skit.



Enjoy life, Frank. Avoid the aggravation this inquiry will bring you.

Have a martinus. What the hell ... have two!

This is rich

An adulterer smears journalists in defense of a former colleague arrested for speeding, drunk driving, and drug possession.

This calls for action, Canadians!

A few days ago, our friend Bina wrote a love letter to Dan Savage.

Dan challenged Canadians to pay more attention to Vic Toews.

Toews has described gay marriage ceremonies as satanic "Black Masses," and insisted that adding gays and lesbians to existing Canadian civil rights statutes would bring the "jackboot of fascism [down] on the necks of our people."

You know where this is going, right?

It turned out that Toews—who once warned that gay marriage could lead to polygamy—was cheating on his wife of 25 years. After getting a much younger woman pregnant, Toews wound up getting divorced. Another marriage destroyed not by gays stomping around in fabulous jackboots, but by yet another straight "Christian" bigot slamming his dick into someone who isn't his wife.

Toews's affair became public two years ago, but the scandal didn't destroy him—he became minister of public safety this January—because the Canadian press sniffed that Toews's affair and divorce were private. Excuse me, Canadian- press pansies, but a politician who scares up votes attacking the private lives of others, a politician who insists that other people are out to destroy his marriage, can't be allowed to hide behind "my private business!" when it turns out that the only threat to the politician's marriage was the politician's own greasy cock.

Dan winds up with this:

Toews is pronounced "taves," and it seems to me that it should be a word for something nasty. Get on it, Canada.

Hmmm. Should the word be a noun, like Santorum? Or maybe a verb: 'to toews: v. trans., to defend the indefensible, preferably with smear tactics, from a safe ReformaTory seat'.

There are some good suggestions at Bina's. As Dan said, let's get on it.

BONUS: Read the excellent comments here.

The Honourable Member for Holt Renfrew.

Oh wait .... Sorry, that's Lisa Raitt's constituency.

That is Helena Guergis depicted above (photo from this G & M blog) who, according to a delicious news item over at the Kady O'Malley blog is trying to wrangle the "I'm entitled to my entitlements, dammit!" title from Raitt.

Yes, I know. Meow, meow, meow.

On the other hand, read over what the ReformaTory propagandists have been saying about members of the opposition, in riding newsletters that were paid by your tax dollars. That should rate one rather MASSIVE WOOF!, no?

What Would You Do to Unseat Stephen Harper?

Would you vote for a non-ReformaTory candidate?

Would you come out to a rally?

Would you write a cheque?

What will be the tipping point for Stevie Spiteful and his band of thugs?

Steve V at Far and Wide thinks it may be a turn by the National Post. We at DAMMIT JANET! hope it might be that travesty of the Canada Pavilion.

What would you do to help tip the damned useless opposition into forcing an election?

The people of C.R.U.S.H. (Canadians Rallying to Unseat Stephen Harper) need money to publish nationwide ads calling for an election.

The goal is $30,000 to $40,000.

My goal is to get one DJ! reader to write a cheque and mail it.

Mine is on the kitchen table, in an envelope, stamped and ready to go.

WE ARE NOW READY TO ACCEPT CHEQUES BY MAIL
PAYABLE TO: UNSEATHARPER.CA
ADDRESS: UNSEATHARPER.CA

BOX 1284

LAKEFIELD, ONTARIO

K0L 2H0
******************************************************
THIS IS YOUR CHANCE TO CONTRIBUTE BY MAIL
*****************************************...***************
PAYAPAL ANNOUNCEMENT TO COME LATER.
*******************************************************

Please.

Bully Baird or Talibanny Pacheco?

Progressive Blogger Queer Thoughts investigates how and when John Baird was outed as a gay man.

Was it a ReformaTory colleague who spilled the beans on CBC?

Or did a few insiders know of Baird's sexual orientation and use the information judiciously? Ricky at QT digs deep and finds information at LieSite, from June 2006.

"Harper rejected the candidacy of pro-marriage candidate John Pacheco during the Dec. 2005 Ottawa West nominations in order to protect the party’s star candidate, homosexual activist John Baird. Baird is a gay activist and staunch proponent of homosexual 'marriage'. In the provincial legislature Baird spoke in favour of a provincial gay marriage law striking the words "husband" and "wife" from all Ontario legislation. In the legislature Baird went so far as to heckle one of his own provincial Conservative colleagues who opposed the gay marriage law.

In 2003 Baird was asked by Stephen Harper to serve as co-chair for his leadership campaign. And in the federal election of 2004, John was again asked by Stephen Harper to serve as Ontario co-chair for the National Campaign."

Egad. Bully Baird or Talibanny Pacheco? Not that I'd ever vote for a ReformaTory, but it's obvious why Stevie chose Baird. The party faithful or the 'full-metal-religious-zealot'?

We must be winning. . . .They're acting like bigger idiots than ever

The various ReformaTory spins being put on yesterday's Pro-Democracy rallies are instructive (and fun!).

Over at Free Dominion, at first some refreshing honesty from my Facebook friend Connie Fournier.

There were thousands of people on Parliament Hill. I would guess about 5000.

We went there half expecting it it to be a crowd of freaks wearing terrorist garb and masks like the group that was in Ottawa protesting Bush that time, but we were surprised by the people who were there.

They were a bunch of normal looking Canadians.

That said, we did leave early because the speakers were crap. One thing that we learned when we were organizing rallies is that you have to get your speakers to stick to the message. We left because we were sick of hearing about "climage change". A guy behind us was saying he left because he didn't want to listen to someone talking about some problem with Nortel.

Anyway, I agree with Narrow Back. Harper is in trouble.

After some more typical FD drivel, Connie wades back in again:

Is the CPC telling people to say that it is better to not have Parliament than to have it? It seems to be quite the theme here lately, and I find it quite disturbing coming from people with populist Reform roots.

I'll put this as plainly as I can. Any country that is being run by one person is a dictatorship.

I know that none of you would be dismissing this if a Liberal had sent everyone home to run things himself. You'd really be better off to just say that you don't care than try to justify it.

A very few of her minions, l like the above-mentioned Narrow Back agree with her. The rest put their hands over their ears, chanting 'IdontcareI dontcareIdontcare.' Like this poster, EdS, who can't handle the quote function and has a 'I miss Ronald Reagan' poster for an avatar:

{quote="Connie Fournier"]I know that none of you would be dismissing this if a Liberal had sent everyone home to run things himself. You'd really be better off to just say that you don't care than try to justify it.[/quote]
That is my position, precisely. If the Liberals had done this, I would be ranting on street corners. That Harpoolah has done it...
Ho-hum... you're right... I don't care. I don't care what Harpoleon does. He could declare Martial Law... don't care. Don't care what happens so long as no bastard liberal is in power. Those vile curs, those socialistic progressive bastards are scum. I hate them with a passion that cannot be described.

Another novel ReformaTory approach is to deny that there were any rallies atall atall. CC in a post tellingly titled 'Let the dumbass, retarded wankitude begin' demolishes one Blogging Tory called The Iceman.

Pause to savour what happened here. Iceman wants to go to the CAPP rally to mock people who actually value the idea of a real democracy. He does not bother to actually check any of the countless online sources of information to find out where that rally is marching to. Instead, he takes a wild guess ... and guesses wrong. He therefore concludes there was no rally, and goes home.

If a four-year-old did something like that, I would consider them retarded.

Go to CC's to read the whole thing and get the link to Iceman's hilarious photo essay on Where the Woozle Wasn't.

Meanwhile, one of the discussions at the CAPP group focuses on collecting examples of such spin and considers ways of confronting them. Drop by with examples or advice.

Oh. And membership is still growing. It hit 215,000 early this evening.

ADDED: I think I might be getting a girl-crush.

Harper ReformaTories: mash-up of theocracy and stalinism.

They LIE.

They lie they lie they lie THEY LIE!

It starts with the seeds of casual exaggerations or tiny prevarications. Those sprout in warm ReformaTory manure, a pungent mash-up of theocratic arrogance and contemporary stalinism.

When they're ready for transplanting, they are lovingly wrapped in rhetoric and faxed/emailed to their acolytes & the sycophants (aka the MPs). They are proclaimed as self-evident truths by a phalynx of Attack Parrots™© ever ready to shout down any reasonable objection or the judicious presentation of actual facts contradicting them because ....

They LIE.

They lie they lie they lie THEY LIE!

Stevie, his bullies and their machinations are now indeed transparent: their tactics are obvious. The emperor has no clothes.

The growing, growling citizenry has caught on to the ReformaTory game.

They LIE.

They lie they lie they lie THEY LIE!


In our country the lie has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the State - Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

Will Canadians accept this, in our country?

I believe not.



Apologies to Jem Rolls for borrowing a particular phrasing, cadence and spirit of his spoken word poetry - though it captures perfectly the imperiousness and arrogance of the ReformaTories.

That other collateral damage.

Last Monday there was a discussion on Radio-Canada regarding Michelle Lang's presence on a mission which turned deadly. The journalist Michèle Ouimet - who has reported three times from Afghanistan - opined that Lang's assignment did not obligate her to travel on recce.

Perhaps Lang hoped her commitment to getting the story would encourage members of the Armed Forces to entrust her with information which might allow her to do justice to the extreme conditions that besiege them in Kandahar province. And to write scrupulously researched articles about circumstances observed in close proximity with an integrity that others such as Stephanie Nolen have demonstrated.

Critically injured in the explosion that killed Lang and four Canadian Armed Forces personnel was Bushra Amjad Saeed, a DFAIT political officer working for the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team. Was she directed by her superiors to monitor information shared between Lang and the troops?

The fatal December 30th recce mission was a routine sortie in a LAV III. Ouimet has traveled with Canadian troops inside one of these armoured vehicles; she said that from her vantage position all she could observe were soldiers doing their jobs.

Lang's specialty was health issues; in volunteering for this dangerous assignment she may have hoped to deepen our knowledge of the range of sacrifices required of soldiers.

Saeed's role on that mission only makes sense when one takes into consideration how Stevie Spiteful and his ReformaTory bullies urgently needed to control every shred of information about Afghanistan.

Unlike Lang, Saeed did not have a choice about her presence in that LAV III. Following what has become for the Conservative minority government a shameful exposure of their loathsome tactics, Lawrence Cannon may have told his staff to keep a lid on reports from Afghanistan. No matter what the collateral damage.

Once more, with feeling.

Over at Canadian Cynic, C.C. writes about Stevie Spiteful's prevarication, obfuscation and confabulation. In other words: The PM Lies!

Thus the time has come to revive a great product DJ! first launched in 2008: The Do-It-Yourself-Harper-Voodoo-Doll.

This is an effigy. Make it as minuscule as its subject deserves or as bloated as your penetrative tool of choice allows.

Go wild with pseudo-Stevie.

Act responsibly in expressing your anger against his ReformaTory government. Choose forms of expression that will be nails in the coffin of Stevie's political career. His loathsome reign has diminished Canada, but it hasn't destroyed the spirit of the Canadian people. Yet.

Go read: Canadian Cynic: They lie because it works. & Your Conservative Party of Canada: Incoherence in action.

Seeing / Hearing / Comprehending Nothing.

After reading Canadian Cynic: The irony is just crippling we suggest that Sandy Cruxiform - indeed, any and all species of blogging Con jobs - slap this picture on to to their sites, as a warning to readers who stumble upon their site, a visual reminder of the flips and spins and reversals and contradictions and sheer stupidity that constantly besiege them in these most perplexing times.

Because not all of them are capable of memorizing the PMO speaking points in order to be an effective Attack Parrot™© like John Baird and his fellow ReformaTories.

And this is where I draw the line.

It must be that I'm one of those pacifist Canadians, still living (in my heart and mind) in that Canada that Jonathan Kay says we're best rid of, thanks to the ReformaTories.

I would not wish an untimely death upon the likes of Rush Limbaugh.

This US guy would, and explains the reasons why. He also has some astute observations about Sarah Palin.

Though Rob Kall pulls back from his punch with this conclusion:

The thing is, my wish is probably moot. Limbaugh surely has great health coverage and will, unlike the tens of millions he'd withold insurance from, get the best health care available.

And what about that pesky little thing called karma?

One could reflect on whether the judicious application of the Christian Golden Rule - "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." - might satisfy the goddess Kali.

Hoping for better things in 2010 - Partie Deux

As my co-blogger said yesterday, 2009 was a regressive year, defined by the election and rule of a minority ReformaTory government and their leader Stevie Spiteful.

Thus I'm posting one of the best weapons that was developed against the odious Con jobs, the YouTube Culture en péril. Artful humour, always good to deflect the toxic ideology of fundamentalist so-con theocrats.




One of the joyous highlights of last year was this lipdub that a group of Communications students at l'Université du Québec à Montréal produced in early September; it went viral on YouTube.





I gotta feeling that 2010 will be better than last year - surely we've reached the tipping point for the crap that ReformaTories can foist on the Canadian public. One gotta have hope.