A National Prayer Breakfast for Israel, Pipelines, and Evangelicals

What an odd photo this is. 

Chuck Strahl -

•  former Aboriginal Affairs Minister and Chair of SIRC, 
• Enbridge lobbyist and Chair of the Manning Centre, 
• member of the Christian and Missionary Alliance along with Stephen Harper and Preston Manning 

is seen here wearing a FN headdress and giving a speech at the first Annual National Aboriginal Prayer Breakfast in Ottawa on June 21 last year. You'll notice he's speaking in front of the flags of Israel, Canada, and the U.S. - but none that I can see for First Nations.

Seated is Prayer Breakfast founder and former Cree chief Kenny Blacksmith of Gathering Nations International, a ministry to "promote a charter of forgiveness between First Nations and the government, churches and people of Canada".  In 2010 Blacksmith organized the National Forgiven Summit for First Nations, Metis and Inuit people to come to Ottawa to accept Stephen Harper's 2008 apology for residential school abuses. 
Harper's outreach to First Nations is looking a tad tattered recently in light of his determination to push his tarsands-to-tankers pipeline scheme through FN lands to the west coast whether they like it or not.

Blacksmith's 2006 Covenant of the First Peoples of Canada, which appears to have garnered more support among evangelicals than First Nations, has 12 signatory witnesses, of which one is anti-abortion crusader Faytene Kryskow Grasseschi who administered Blacksmith's National Forgiven Summit facebook page

Appearing on 100 Huntley Street, flagship of Christian broadcaster Crossroads International whose chairman accompanied Harper to Israel in January, Blacksmith explained why Article One of the Covenant proclaims to "bless Israel"

"We recognize the Jewish people as the first of all First Nations - they are a very tribal people and in fact you know I've always told our people that the Jewish people have a role in place to restore the integrity of the gospel of Christ back to our people."

Also speaking at last year's Breakfast was the co-host of The 700 Club Canada, and Christian Zionist Rev. James Goll from Tennessee, author of "Praying For Israel's Destiny : Effective Intercession for God's Purposes in the Middle East".

The breakfast was co-hosted by two anti-abortion crusaders, Con Senator Don Meredith - who received an honorary Doctor of Divinity from the a fore-mentioned 100 Huntley Street - and Enbridge pipeline booster Con MP James Lunney, who also accompanied Harper on his big trip to Israel in January, along with David Hearn, president of Strahl and Harper's church, the Christian and Missionary Alliance.

So - some peculiar links revealed in an odd photograph taken by Campaign Life Coalition  activist Paul Lauzon. 

All of which is just by way of my introduction to Amy MacPherson's brilliant The Granddaddy of Government Scandals, a research project that began investigating the federal government links to the anti abortion lobby and grew and grew and grew ....
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Only in Canada, you say?

DAMMIT JANET! has a post up about a fetus fetish twit-a-thon going down tomorrow targeting Canadian legislators in four provinces to #defundabortion.

LifeSite News Canada is promoting the action : Tweet-a-thon planned for Canada

"Pro-lifers in Canada will take to Twitter Thursday to urge provincial governments to end taxpayer funding of abortion. 

Campaign Life Coalition is organizing a tweet-a-thon from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. to coincide with Defund Abortion rallies organized Thursday in Nova Scotia, Manitoba, Alberta, and Ontario. They are urging pro-lifers to use the hashtag #DefundAbortion throughout the day, and include their MPP’s handle in their tweets.  

Be sure to tweet as many times as you can throughout the day and invite your friends to do the same."

Curious about how Canadians are responding to this. I checked out the 45 comments under their article. Excerpted from 9 separate comments :

• ... real import is the deleterious impact that obamacare is already having on the livelihoods of millions of Americans.
• Abortion has been legal since the 1970s, and Barack Obama is being blamed for that
• House Republicians are not fully committed to the American Constitution
• The Americans who agree with ObamaCare are ignorant. 
• Obama administration and Congress don't care;
• Our founding fathers intended for the right to life to extend to an unborn child
• Russia has a better future than America.
• Americans want their government back
• Shutting down the government would be a bad thing, but ObamaCare will be far worse.
• Obama is a dictator. He is ruling, not the Congress.

OK, you get the idea ... and so on and so on throughout all 45 comments on Campaign LifeSite News Canada. 
Not one mention in any of them of Canada or Canadians anywhere.

Where exactly is it you guys get your funding from again?

Thursday Update from CBC : Pro-choicers outnumber anti-abortionists at Thursday afternoon protest
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Backbenchers Spring officially over

Two weeks ago the Backbenchers Spring was full of hope as Langley Con MP Mark Warawa and his five brave Con backbenchers rose up to defend the very soul of democracy, and incidentally, Wawawa's right to independent Steve-free abortion speech in the House of Commons in the form of Motion 408.

Sadly it was not to be.  Yesterday ...

Wawawa will drop bid for vote on sex-selective abortion :

"Over that last couple of weeks, I seriously considered my options and how best to move this issue forward.

I've decided to continue working on the sex selection, gendercide issue by speaking at university campuses, giving lectures and engaging in debates." 

Feel free to sing along with me : Bravely bold Sir Wawa, brave Sir Wawa ...

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Wednesday April 24 Backbencher Spring update :  Our story so far ..... Justin's backbenchers freedom motion gets bumped by Cons sudden need to debate/pass the Combating Terrorism Act on Monday, during which the Trainspotter Two get busted for terrorism. Yeah, I know. 

Anyway, Speaker Scheer tells backbenchers to grow a pair and if they want to speak in the House, he will recognize them. So today ... and can you stand the tension, the anticipation, the drama? ... Wawawa catches Scheer's eye, rises, and delivers a homily to his riding's arts centre contest, Langley Has Talent.

So there you have it - the new self-censoring backbencher robots may now speak. What a historic victory for democracy and local talent contests everywhere.

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Abortion and the robot revolt

How heartwarming it was to watch five brave Con backbenchers rise up to defend Langley Con MP Mark Warawa's right to independent Steve-free abortion speech in the House of Commons. After years of having to recite member statements on whatever idiotic repetitive talking points the 30-somethings in the PMO assigned to them every day, this week the robots are revolting.

Con MP Brent Rathgeber : I would submit that if the House does not jealously protect the rights of members to bring forward matters of concern to their constituents and if it does not strictly enforce those rules, the roles of the private member, Parliament and ultimately democracy have all been equally compromised.

Really. You're just noticing this now?
And just like that it's no longer a matter of keeping the abortion debate on a constant low simmer in the House until we all get used to hearing womens' rights questioned there  - no, indeed our very democracy has been compromised if Con MPs aren't allowed to bring it up on a regular basis. 

Andrew Coyne has written two impassioned columns in as many days defending Warawa' right to speak. 
His Backbench revolt isn’t pro-life vs. pro-choice, it’s for the freedom of all MPs repeats some of the arguments he put forth in his 2008 column :
It's time to talk about abortion : This is not about abortion. This is about democracy 
and another one from a year ago :
The idea we can’t debate abortion is unworthy of a democratic country. 

The five Con MPs bravely supporting Mark Warawa in his campaign to save the very soul of democracy are Brent Rathgeber, John Williamson, Stephen Woodworth, Kyle Seeback, and Leon Benoit.  And here, as a gentle reminder, are the answers three of them - Woodworth, Seeback, and Benoit - gave to the Campaign Life Coalition Candidate Evaluation election questionnaire in 2011 and 2008 :

Williamson, Steve's former communications director, and Rathgeber declined to answer the Campaign Life questionnaire but both voted in favor of Woodworth's alternative abortion ploy - Motion 312 - to study when life begins in the womb, along with 86 other Con MPs and one third of cabinet.

While there are principled reasons to support MPs' right to speak freely in the House, it is notable that of all the issues this government has made a point of muzzling of their MPs on, including this one in its various previous anti-choice disguises, suddenly we are being asked to put the right of MPs to speak their minds in the House ahead of women's rights as a point of principle, led by MPs who have already committed themselves to introducing anti-choice laws.

So are we looking at a Backbencher Spring here?             
Here's Warawa free speech supporter Con MP Leon Benoit immediately after the weekly caucus meeting with Steve the following day :

Nope, guess not. Looks like Steve muzzled the groundhogs for yet another spring.
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Monday, April 1 update :  Con MP Brent Rathgeber, after the same caucus meeting :

“I think it was a good meeting. The media have reported, and I think accurately, that many members who were upset for a variety of reasons, seem to be satisfied that the issues have either been resolved or the issues are not worth resolving.”

The 24 hour Con Backbencher Spring is over.

Sun News Exposed

" Sun News has been a strong voice supporting pro-life, pro-family and limited government ideals. This is what my show, Byline, has been about from the beginning," wrote Sun News host Brian Lilley to select supporters. "We are asking friends to help us out by signing our petition which will tell the CRTC that Sun News is a valued service that all Canadians should have access to."

Or rather : Canadians will be forced to pay for if they successfully petition the government to force 'free market' companies into doing business with Sun News.

So who answered the call?

Well, as already noted first by Alberta Diary : LifeSite: Sun News asks pro-lifers to support 'do or die' application.

The anti-choice Campaign Life Coalition : Sign the petition to keep Sun News Network on the Air

Canadian Shooting Sports Assoc. : Attention firearms enthusiasts -- please vote NOW to keep Sun News Network on the air

Catholic Canada : Help Sun News get a fair shake

Senator Patrick Brazeau : Dude, how many more ways can I say this: I. Support. Sun. News. Getting. Mandatory. Carriage. (With associated fees.)"

While over at Counterjihad!, if you scroll down a bit under
Breaking News! – FOIA response confirms Obama using stolen Social Security number, 
you'll find Canadians! Sun News needs your help!  

"Our rivals are doing everything in their power to stop us from getting a new broadcast licence. We’re used to their tactics, but we can’t let them get away with this. We need your support. We need you to take action.
Right now we’re getting the short end of the stick. Many local cable providers are refusing to offer Sun News! In fact, we’re only allowed in 4 out of 10 households in Canada and that’s not fair."

Along with alerts in Sun Media Corp's 43 daily newspapers and over 250 community weekly papers across the country, the largest press group in Canada, and CanoeTV, Canoe.ca., plus the daily harangues from Spun News itself.
Quite the little support group they have going there.

About that constant Sun News refrain: "only available in 4 out of 10 Canadian households."

Fagstein : Fact-checking the debate over Sun News

According to the latest CRTC Communications Monitoring Report, the major providers (Rogers, Shaw, Videotron, Cogeco and Bell) combine for 10.2 million subscribers out of 11.8 million total. According to the same report, 80% of subscribers have digital service, so that means at least 8 million of the 12 million (two thirds) could add Sun News to their service if they wanted to.

So I guess they don't want to, huh? Probably don't want to be forced to either.

Michael Geist  : CRTC should put consumers first and drop ‘must carry’ requirements

"CRTC - stop treating Canadians as ATMs for the broadcasters by dropping mandatory distribution altogether, while requiring broadcast distributors to offer all licensed channels to their subscribers in a pick-and-pay format so that at long last consumers get to decide what they want to watch and pay for."

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Paging Snuffleupagus to the SunNews white courtesy petition

The last time Sun News needed help with an online petition, Snuffleupagus and Homer Simpson were there to help, mysteriously adding their names  to 80,000 others on a "Stop Fox News North" Avaaz petition in 2010, along with a number of real people like Kady and Stephen Maher who didn't sign it.

Sun News mastermind, Kornkob ethanol lobbyist, and Steve's former director of communications Kory Teneycke 'discovered' the fraudulent names and wrote it up in his Sun News column on Sept 3 2010 in a bid to discredit the petition ....  only to get busted by Kady who pointed out the names on the petition were not published so how did he know about them then, huh?

Kory, who had wanted a Fox News for Canada as far back as 2003 and in March 2009 went with boss  Harper to meet with Fox News magnates Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes in New York, resigned unexpectedly from Sun News four days after his Homer/Snuffy column, but returned as Sun News VP three and a half months later.

The very same day Homer and Snuffy were helping out Sun News with their bogus petition entries, Kory went on CBC's Power and Politics :

"We are not nor have we ever asked for mandatory carriage of this station where Canadians would have to be obliged to pay. We are saying that we would like to have it offered but theoretically it could be carried by no one ... these are all private sector negotiations." 

Or, as he put it in his Homer/Snuffy column :

"Sun TV News is not, nor has it ever, asked for “mandatory carriage” by cable or satellite companies. As the critics correctly point out, this would be tantamount to a tax on everyone with cable or satellite service"

Well that was then; this is now. 
Now they are asking the CRTC for exactly that - mandatory carriage to be included in every basic cable package in Canada plus guaranteed placement on the lower end of the dial. Because it turns out the 'free market' they go on about so relentlessly turns out to be just another of the many many obstacles they have to overcome on their path to Spun News greatness, like Ezra wearing that orange wig above to mock Jack Layton's funeral.

Sun News Network is arguing its signal must be broadcast into every Canadian home if it is ever going to recover from losses that have already reached $17-million a year.

This would generate about $18-million a year for the network ...

... sparking a whole slew of "then cancel my cable" comments under the G&M article.

Sun News argues that many Canadians have expressed enthusiasm for its conservative commentary-intensive programming, and would watch the channel regularly, but they don’t know it even exists. The digital cable or satellite connections currently required to see it haven’t been adopted by enough viewers in the senior citizen demographic that Quebecor concedes it is largely appealing to.

So Sun News has put up its own petition to the CRTC, presumably appealing to the angry racist misogynist xenophobic pro-gun pro-christian anti-choice anti-environment anti-union anti-gay anti-pot anti-Quebec anti-government anti-Roma anti-FN anti-Islam anti-arts tough-on-crime "senior citizen demographic" who "don't know it even exists" to lend their support. 

Well ok then. Maybe Homer and Snuffy could help out here.

Update : Arghh. Alberta Diary : SUN NEWS PLEADS WITH ANTI-CHOICE GROUP TO BACK ITS QUEST FOR 'RIGHT TO LIFE' SUBSIDY

Brian Lilley : "Sun News is the strongest voice for the pro-life cause on television in Canada. Bar none."

Sun VP Teneycke : " we need to demonstrate a groundswell of support for Sun News, and the readers of LifeSiteNews can help."

You can submit your opinion on SunNews' application directly to the CRTC here.
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Woodie's wombattlefield

Steve, one year ago : "I'm not opening this debate (on abortion). I don't want it opened. I have not wanted it opened. I haven't opened it as Prime Minister. I'm not going to open it. The public doesn't want to open it. This is not the priority of the Canadian public or this government and it will not be."


Yet here's Con MP Stephen Woodworth, happily debating abortion with Choice Joyce at HuffPo yesterday. 
Why?
Because the House Procedures committee, which coincidentally boasts four openly anti-choice MP guys - Scott Reid, Harold Albrecht, Laurie Hawn, and Tom Lukiwski (and do see yesterday's post for their particular shenanigans over robocon) - the PROC Committee has granted Woodie the right to debate his don't-mention-abortion-I-did-once-but-I-think-I-got-away-with-it abortion Motion 312 in the House on April 26. 


Woodie believes a human life begins at conception and he's not about to allow us sluts to fuck that up for the state any longer. All he asks is for a committee of 12 MPs - 7 Cons, 4 Dippers, and 1 Lib with a Con chair all appointed by that selfsame PROC committee - to figure it out for us and let us know the answer to the question : Why doesn't the state have legal custody over the breeding vessels any more? AKA Whatever happened to a trip to England for the rich; coathangers for the poor? 


Woodie wants it all done "scientifically" : "If we accept one law that says some human beings are not human, who's next?" 
From there he makes the jump from what is human - which is not in dispute as fetuses are obviously human tissue - to what is a person, which is a legal argument. He's pretty sure some kind of equitable agreement can be worked out that will allow two or more legal persons to inhabit one body which will be fair to both and so help me he likens it to freeing the slaves : "the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1859 that blacks were not persons under U.S. law. Wouldn't you and I have objected if we had been there?"

I'm really tired of the whole gamut of this cloying fetish for fetuses - those ethereal imaginary pets of terminally controlling god freaks - from their bunfests on the Hill to pix of their pets plastered in all their gory glory like substitute suffering jesuses on the sides of trucks parked outside schools for the shock value.

It's disgusting. Get help. Stop bothering us.

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#TellAntiChoiceMPsEverything

Stephen Woodworth, MP
House of Commons

Dear Sir :

Thank you for your recent expression of interest in my uterus.
Unfortunately we have no openings at this time commensurate with your job skills. However we would be pleased to keep your application on file and review it at a future date in the event the world falls into a fucking time warp and we wind up back in the '50s.

Sincerely,
Alison@Creekside

PS We are delighted to discover #TellAntiChoiceMPsEverything, a twitter and FB account dedicated to keeping you apprised of all the latest details of ladybits. Please accept the following submission :

Dear Woody et al
I'm going through a bit of a dry spell at the moment if you know what I mean and I know you do!
But rather than using that disgusting estrogen replacement gunk, I find a little dab of vanilla ice cream from time to time works just as well, and everybody just loves it!
Yours in uteriety,
Alison
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40 - 40 - 20

Choice Joyce at Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada has researched which MPs are anti-choice, pro-choice, or unknown using their public statements during campaigns, their position on the awarding of the Order of Canada to Dr. Henry Morgentaler, and how they voted on Bill C-484, the Unborn Victims of Crime Act, at Second Reading in 2008.

Con MPs who voted in favour of Bill C-484 but have no other known public position on abortion are possibly still pro-choice, says Joyce, and therefore are not included in the anti-choice stats. Members of the Bloc and NDP are presumed to be pro-choice. Details on individual MPs are listed below the chart.

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40% pro - 39% anti - 21% unknown - the support among federal MPs for the right of women to control what happens to their own bodies.

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According to Joyce's calculations, one quarter of the Libs are anti-choice.

SoCon Liberal MP Paul Szabo, Chair of the Ethics Committee, spoke at Fetus Festivus on the Hill last week :

"We will be back to reconsidering the question in the House . . . We’re taking incremental steps, small steps. It’s just a question of knowing when it’s the right time."

In March, a Liberal motion to include abortion in Harper's G8 maternal health initiative failed 144-138 because 3 Blue Dog Libs voted against it, 2 abstained, and 12 Libs skipped the vote.

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Last fall, Con MP Brad Trost initiated a petition, signed by 30 MPs, demanding an end to the Canadian International Development Agency's $18 million in annual funding for Planned Parenthood. Six months into 2010, Planned Parenthood is still without funding.

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Maurice Vellacott - unplugged

First, a little recap.
Remember that bizarre non-apology Maurice "unplugged" Vellacott gave when forced to resign the post Harper gave him as Chair of the Commons Aboriginal Affairs Committee? He had made shit up, attributed it to a Chief Justice when in fact she said the opposite of what he claimed, and then resigned with a statement which included an entirely unrelated reference to his right to "defend women and the rights of the preborn".

On Wednesday, there he was defending women again - this time holding a press conference with American anti-abortion activist and breast surgeon Angela Lanfranchi, whom he had invited up to Canada to inform us there has been a 40-per-cent increase in the incidence of breast cancer in the last 30 years.

Angela Lanfranchi :
"It's the women of the Roe v. Wade generation that account for most of this increase. Dramatic lifestyle changes brought about by the sexual revolution and the women's liberation movement are largely responsible for the rampant breast cancer we see today."

So, according to Lanfranchi, breast cancer is caused by abortions which are caused by feminism - a theory also also known as 'it's your own fault, bitches'.
Lanfranchi was referring to the "research" of born-again anti-abortionist Dr. Joel Brind, discounted ten years ago by the National Cancer Institute in the United States, the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (and their U.S. counterparts), as well as the Canadian Cancer Society and the Canadian Breast Cancer Network, as being entirely without merit.

OK, we're up to speed now.
Undeterred by this refutation from their colleagues, Brind and Lanfranchi have launched a website called "Breast Cancer Prevention Institute". The home page states their mission :
"Our website is dedicated to providing the most up-to-date and accurate information to medical professionals and the general public on how to prevent breast cancer. Our on-line publications, as well as our list of other resources, are all designed to provide you with knowledge of practical, risk-reduction strategies."

Mostly consisting of abstinence and the rhythm method.

But then rather puzzlingly, after an ad for a fundraiser for the site, the entire rest of the main page - and I mean the whole rest of the main page here - is devoted to a plea from Dr Joel Brind to help prevent the passing of anti-lobby legislation currently before the US Congress. He urges the reader to visit www.lobbysense.com to see what you can do about it. So I did.

LobbySense states that free speech and the rights of lobbyists are at risk if this legislation requires them to have to register as, you know, lobbyists.

LobbySense is outraged that Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska is supporting this anti-free speech legislation after all the help they have given him in his bid to open up Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling :
"In the ultimate attack of irony, just yesterday, a coalition of organizations (some of whom are members of the LobbySense coalition) sent a comprehensive letter to House and Senate leadership outlining reasons to open ANWR to drilling."
Later on the same page they report that Senator Stevens has come around to their way of thinking.

LobbySense lists its members : Grover Norquist, Paul Weyrich of "Coalitions for America", Gary Bauer of "American Values", Phyllis Schlafly of "Eagle Forum", and a dozen other high profile right-wing life-hating assholes.

Last week, Vellacott countered a rebuke for lying about a chief justice with some completely unrelated codswallop about his mandate from his sky monster (TM - Dave's Random Gibberish) and the rights of the preborn. I can hardly wait to hear what grand non sequitur he will use to defend his right to be duped by a front group for rightwing American extremists.

When LobbySense member Grover Norquist famously quipped, "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub", he made no provision not to throw the baby Jesus out with the bathwater.
Vellacott might want to think about that.
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