Morgentaler Derangement Syndrome

Whoever could have predicted that yesterday's Order of Canada investiture ceremony would raise such sound and fury among the fetus fetishists? Anyone who knows that they harbour a Morgentaler obsession of such brain-damaged magnitude that it can only be called "Morgentaler Derangement Syndrome"... that's who.

Having already directed their impotent rage in turns at the Governor-General, then the Order of Canada selection committee, then Chief Justice McLachlin, all in vain, yesterday's ceremony flipped them back into outrage mode and they're gunning for the GG again. Religious crackpot Deborah Gyapong SHRIEEEEEKS:

"Today, on the day preceding Thanksgiving Weekend, she gives this award to a man whose activism has contributed to the deaths of more than 2 million unborn children. A man who brags about personally aborting about 100,000 babies.

This woman must go. Her term must be rescinded." (emphasis mine)

Fuck off. Just fuck right off. Gyapong is either direly dull-witted or sleazily disingenuous (or more likely some nefarious combination of the two) and just trying to whip up a little more outrage among the cerebrally-deprived. By now it's common knowledge that the Governor-General has nothing to do with the nuts and bolts of the Order of Canada selection process -- she just announces the recipients and pins the medals on their lapels. That hasn't changed in the last 3 months in spite of all the spittle-flecked, drool-stained letters (and worse) that were sent to her by these delusional nutbars. For them to demand that her term be rescinded is a new nadir of assholishness.

If this is all they've got, to point and scream at someone they've already been proven wrong in pointing and screaming at, I (dis)respectfully suggest that it's long past time they faced reality and got the fuck over it. Freedom won. Liberty won. Privacy won. Choice won. Shut the fuck up and deal with it, douchebags.

From the OC investiture ceremony

The anti-abortion freaks have posted a few photos of their whiny little protests against yesterday's Order of Canada investiture ceremony that included Dr. Henry Morgentaler, but there's really only one picture that counts:

(From Canada.com)

Speaking of Dr. Morgentaler's award, OC recipient and former Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour summed it up best:

"In the specific case of Dr. Morgentaler, I think he represents values that Canadians should be happy to celebrate: courage, passion, dedication, personal service to a cause that obviously has been a controversial one."

Get the picture, fetus fetishists?

Gasp! *swoon*

That was the sound of a thousand fetus fetishists stumbling toward the fainting couch and losing consciousness. Oh boo hoo hoo!:

"Abortion-rights activist Dr. Henry Morgentaler was expected to receive his Order of Canada award on Friday at a ceremony in Quebec City.

Governor General Michaëlle Jean will present Morgentaler with the honour at the Citadel. Morgentaler, 85, is among 20 Canadians to receive the award."

The CBC article hasn't even been up for an hour and already 37 comments... only 37?? That doesn't seem like a lot, considering half of them are from pro-choicers. Maybe everyone else is still out cold after the Big Faint.

I am watching it live on TV right this very minute -- Dr. M got the medal, to applause. Fait accompli! All the petitions, all the astroturfed complaints to the Supreme Court, all the freeped polls, all the demands to revoke, all the urging of other OC recipients to return their medals (ten (10) returned so far, 3 from beyond the grave)... all for nada.

Canada is a pro-choice nation. Res ipsa loquitur.

Congratulations, Dr. Morgentaler. You are a hero.

Your morning SHRIEEEEEEEK!!!

My "lifeshite" tab is starting to jiggle and jerk and rumble as though it's trying to jump right off my bookmarks bar! That can only mean it's time to pop the corks again, because surely the Apocalypse is upon us:

SHRIEEEEEEEKohmygawdshrieeEEEEEK!!!!

"Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) the political arm of the pro-life movement has led the public outcry against the nomination with a petition of over 30,000 Canadians, commissioning the largest poll in the country on the subject..."

They're sure getting their money's worth out of the MASSIVE poll. Too bad, suckahs, we won. You lost. Own it. Get over it. Have a glass of champers...

HAHAHAHAHAHA! Congratulations, Dr. Morgentaler!

NOT TOTAL LOSERS UPDATE: Birth Pangs is all over it, baby!

McVety "not surprised" complaint tossed

Okay, yesterday Birth Pangs brought us up to date on Chuck McVety's lame and astroturfed complaint against Justice Beverley McLachlin: EPIC FAIL. Strangely, only the Globe & Mail and the USian version of lifesite was reporting it. So far not a peep from lifesite or for that matter, any of the vile scum who championed the complaint. (Well, I'd probably be looking the other way too.)

But anyway, today the Star reports:

"The Canadian Judicial Council has thrown out a complaint against a Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin that accused her of playing an inappropriate role in recommending Dr. Henry Morgentaler be nominated for the Order of Canada."

and adds that Jabba the McVety has finally stirred and croaked out a response:

"Charles McVety, who as president of the Canada Family Action Coalition drafted the complaint letter, said he disagreed with much of the decision but was not surprised." (E.M.)

Not surprised? Then why the fuck did you cretins file the bogus complaint in the first place!? I want to know how much this little sham costed US, the TAXPAYERS. And I want McVety to pay it all back -- Every. Fucking. Cent. Until then, I don't want to see any of these improvident socon imbeciles running their mouths about "taxpayers' money". Like I said before...

So much for that

We all remember last month Chuck McVety and "42" astroturfed "organizations" filed a complaint against Justice Beverly McLachlin for... uh, err... oh I don't know, thought crimes? in regard to her supposed "role" in Dr. Morgentaler's Order of Canada. Yes yes, sure we do. Well, it's back to the drawing board for those dithering assholes. W00t!

9th OC returned... twice

This is an event of such earth-shattering significance that nobody except lifeshite is reporting it. After 2 months of whining and shrieking, moaning and groaning, fainting and swooning, a 9th Order of Canada has been returned:

"On July 10, John Culliton Poston returned his deceased uncle E.M. Culliton's Order of Canada medal in protest of the growing list of controversial Canadians being granted Canada's highest civilian honor - most notably the prolific abortionist Dr. Henry Morgentaler."

Whoa, hold the phone: July 10th? I thought the guy's name looked familiar! It looks like he tried to return his (deceased uncle's) OC to the wrong place and they sent it back. So he returned it again, to the right place this time, and it became "news" again. Tsk-tsk, lifesite, that's astroturfing, and astroturfers never prosper.

UPDATE: Not only that, but it's a dead guy's OC, so it's not even John Culliton Poston's to return anyway. So let me get this straight: lifeshite reported twice on an OC that was "returned" twice that isn't really even the returnee's to return... how the fuck many lies is that??

105 MPs disagree

I'm shocked, I tell you! According to the results of a survey done by Campaign Fetus Coalition and released yesterday, 105 MPs say they disagree with the Morgentaler Order of Canada!

105 out of, what, 308? That's, what, about 1/3? Nice to see our parliamentary representatives reflect the Canadian public's views so precisely.

Rushfeldt to Cosh: "We wuz stonewalled!"

We have another pulse! In today's National Post, there's more socon mewling and whining as Canada Family Action Coalition's Brian Rushfeldt responds to Colby Cosh's article last week in which the CFAC and their complaint against Justice McLachlin were given a good shitkicking. Cosh called the complaint "ludicrous", and pointed out that, among other ridiculousness, it cited completely irrelevant sections of the OC constitution. Rushfeldt fires back that any stupidity only occurred because they were unable to get the correct information:

"We thank Colby Cosh for reclarifying comments Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin made regarding her role on the Order of Canada Advisory Council. However, notably absent in his column ("A ludicrous attack on McLachlin," Aug. 22) were several key facts.

Canada Family Action Coalition (CFAC) operated with the best evidence available to us on Aug. 13 when we filed the complaint with the Canadian Judicial Council. Some information came from news stories (one from the National Post), some from past council decisions and some from the Constitution of the Order. All attempts we made to confirm the accuracy of information were stonewalled. We were stonewalled by the Governor-General's office and the judge. Requests for information under the Access to Information Act failed. We were informed the Governor-General is exempt from requirements of the act, which allows her to operate in a code of secrecy. Additionally, a one-liner on the Governor-General's Web page states: "All deliberations of the Advisory Council for the Order of Canada, as well as for any Canadian honour, are confidential.""

... so they went ahead and filed the complaint anyway, with whatever information they had. From news stories? What, like lifesite?? DUH! (Funny that Cosh didn't seem to have any trouble getting the facts straight, but I digress.)

It's unlikely that CFAC is too concerned about the facts anyway -- if they were, they might have addressed Cosh's scoffing ridicule of the "42 groups" that signed the complaint. Nah, they don't want to go there (and who can blame them?). What probably sent them into a furious foaming spittle-flecked lather was the last sentence of Cosh's article:

"Could it be that Morgentaler's appointment was in fact perfectly in line with the "social norms" of today?"

Read it and weep, fetus fetishists. And learn to live with it, because that's the Way It Is.

The "42 Organizations" Crash Diet

Woohoo! Here's the most current list of the Canada Family Action Coalition's "42 organizations" that signed the complaint against Justice McLachlin, revised to reflect its Ultra TRUTHfast™ diet and subsequent slim-down. As it stands, without the bloat there are now 20 legitimate "groups", less than half of the original 42. To those still left on the list:

"Have ya called Buckets yet?"

UPDATE (Aug. 23): 18! ~ 18! ~ 18! ~ 18! ~ 18! ~ 18! ~ 18!

Chuck McVety: Feminist Icon

Shorter Chuckles McVety: "My complaint against Justice McLachlin is swirling in the bowl. Look! Over there! Shiny, sparkly, pornographic thing!"

"A faith-based conservative family group said it would like the Harper government to intervene to block a broadcasting licence issued to a new Canadian porn channel.

The Canada Family Action Coalition wants the Conservatives to quash last week's decision by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to grant a licence to adult film network Northern Peaks."

The licence granted to Alberta-based Real Productions requires the new channel broadcast 50 per cent Canadian content. That means Canadian young people will be enlisted to work on and in some cases appear in porn films, says Charles McVety, president of CFAC.

"It is to the public detriment to fuel an industry where women are degraded and treated as sex objects," he said." (emphasis mine)

HAHAHAHAHAHA! Like taking away our reproductive rights and turning us into baby-making machines isn't treating us as objects? How is being treated as a forced-birthing object any better than being treated as a sex object?

And bonus: "Charles McVety"? Not "DOCTOR Charles McVety"? You're getting it, MSM. Next step: questions! questions! and more questions!

(H/T: PSA)

A little balance... from the Globe & Mail!

From an editorial today titled "Smearing the Chief Justice": now this is more like it:

"Still upset over the appointment of Henry Morgentaler to the Order of Canada, a coalition of anti-abortion groups has filed a complaint with the Canadian Judicial Council (CJC), accusing Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin of misconduct for her part in chairing the Order of Canada advisory council. It is a frivolous accusation and one that the Chief Justice should not have to answer at all, much less publicly.

Those who oppose abortion, or seek restrictions to protect the lives of fetuses, take the decision to honour Dr. Morgentaler as an affront. To disagree with his appointment is reasonable -- abortion remains a polarizing issue -- but complaints about the outcome should be made to the Governor-General, who awards the Order of Canada, not to the CJC.

To attack the process by which Dr. Morgentaler was appointed to the Order of Canada is also open to the Canadian Family Action Coalition. The group can do so by challenging the Constitution of the Order of Canada, which obliges the Chief Justice to act as the chair of the advisory council to the Order of Canada.

Accusing the Chief Justice of judicial misconduct, however, suggests these activists are merely looking for publicity." [...]

"If the Canadian Family Action Coalition is concerned about the constitutionality of the provision under the Constitution of the Order of Canada requiring the Chief Justice to chair the advisory council, the group should challenge the requirements of the law. This complaint to the CJC about the Chief Justice's alleged misconduct is a cheap shot, and unconvincing." (emphasis mine)

W00t! And that's without even knowing about the Astroturfing.

Today's "42 Organizations" special: 50% off!!!

I had so much fun with the migraine-inducingly confusing United Families Canada that I couldn't resist checking out another name on the amazing shrinking List of 42™©®. Next target: "Live-In International". Can you believe I was unable to find out anything about this organization/business or whatever? (What? You can believe it?)

I realize that some of these "pro-life" and religious groups are teenie-weenie (heavy on the "weenie"). But it raises the question of how small is too small -- one person is too small to be a group, but it can still be on the list as one person, as long as it's verifiable that they exist. Even the tiny little one-person businesses on the list are at least searchable (which is how buckets found out some of them were astroturfing).

So should the elusive "Live-In International" be included in the list of organizations behind the complaint? Well, maybe -- if we could prove that it exists. But given what I've found (or not been able to find) so far, I think it's chopping material. Using an organization that's unsearchable and unverifiable is almost like, well, making up names and adding them.

So Chop-chop, "Live-In International"! Unless Buckets or one of you guys reading can find out something about this thing, it's Bye-bye! And this 50% Off Astroturf Sale brings the original List of 42™©® down to 21. For now.
UPDATE: CC has more on another one of the "complainants", 4 My Canada... more astroturfing? And then there were 20?

UPDATE II: Or... maybe not. From PSA at CC.

UPDATE III: Correction! "Live-in International" is a real group after all, a small group by the sounds of it, but big enough to be considered a group. So says buckets here in the comments. D'oh! No Half-price sale today, we're back up to 22!

Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to

...ASTROTURF!!!

Last night, looking at the slimmed-down list of groups named in the complaint against Justice McLachlin, I got interested in "United Families Canada". UFC got my attention because it didn't appear to have a website or anything else to prove its existence, other than some text in the banner of the "Restore Marriage Canada" website, and this, on the RMC "About Us" page:


"The Canadian affiliate of United Families International" -- is that so? Well, that's funny because "United Families Canada" isn't even listed on UFI's "Affiliates" page:


In fact, I combed the UFI site and couldn't find "United Families Canada" listed anywhere at all. The closest thing is in the UFI's "Projects" category, where "Restore Marriage Canada" is listed. And of course, as mentioned previously, "Restore Marriage Canada" claims to be a project of "United Families Canada". And around and around and around it goes, where the bullshit stops, nobody knows.

When the obfuscating crap is pared away, there are only two players here: a US group, "United Families International", and one of its projects, "Restore Marriage Canada". (Why the state of Canadian marriage would be any concern of a US group is another story.) There is one person, Jill Cahoon, who calls herself "president of United Families Canada". There's a PO box for UFC in Aetna, Alberta. On the Canada Family Action Coalition's "Defend Marriage"astroturf list contacts page, "United Families Canada" is listed with Ms. Cahoon's home phone number in Tofield, Alberta.


I've been unable to find any members of "United Families Canada" other than its president... probably because it isn't a group at all. It's one person who copy/pastes newsletters from the US group "United Families International" on the "Restore Marriage Canada" website, which itself is a project of the aforementioned UFI:


and for that she gets the honour of calling herself "El Presidente". In fact, the only proof that "United Families Canada" even exists, is that Ms. Cahoon says so...


...and, well, given the truthiness track record of Rushfeldt's 42 groups™©®, I'm afraid that's just not acceptable. Certainly not if it's to be named in something as serious as a complaint against a Supreme Court Chief Justice. What do they think this is, friggin Amateur Hour? This is serious fuckery. "United Families Canada" should therefore be struck from Rushfeldt's list of groups, and at best, replaced with the name of an individual person, Ms. Jill Cahoon.

Yo, buckets: did you say "25"? How about 24??

UPDATE: And another one's gone and another one's gone... "Take Back Canada" isn't a group or even a person fer fuck sake, it's just a website. I'm sure some douche runs it (the "Stop The HRCs" banner looks, um, familiar), but Whois didn't reveal any information. Therefore, chop chop! Off it comes! What have we got now, 23?

UPPERDATE: Goodbye, North Shore Pro-Life (or "Right to Life", with the same address and phone number it's all good), subsidiary of Pro-Life BC, provincial affiliate of Life Canada. And then there were 22... will we make it down to HALF? Stay tuned...

"Extremely Important Petition?"

"Yeah yeah, just leave it over there by the Smithrite."

YEOWTCH! Those fetus fetishists are real gluttons for punishment. About 30 of them showed up at the Governor-General's place today with their mighty petition to revoke Henry Morgentaler's Order of Canada in hand. A nattering knot of nitwits arrived at Rideau Hall looking for a little pomp and circumstance as they handed the petition over to the GG and the Prime Minister *up close and personal*. But -- ho ho! Not today!:

"A group of anti-abortion activists was forced to leave a petition calling for the revocation of Dr. Henry Morgentaler's Order of Canada award at the gates of Rideau Hall Wednesday afternoon.

No official from the Governor General's official residence was on hand to accept the 30,000 signatures that had been collected by the Silent No More Campaign.

National co-ordinator Angelina Steenstra said she was not disappointed with the turnout of 30 or so activists since the petition showed how many people across the country support their position.

"Not disappointed" -- well, I don't doubt that. The petition itself (after 8 weeks, only 30,000 signatures out of supposedly a million people who object?) probably knocked all the disappointment out of her like the stuffing out of a cabbage patch doll. And so, with no pomp or circumstance, the petition was left at the gate (next to the recycle bin).

It's unclear what gave these zygote zealots the idea that they were important enough to warrant face time with either the GG or the PM, let alone an audience of both at once -- maybe the same thing that led them to believe they could renovate Canada using the Republic of Gilead as a template.

Taking a closer look

It's melting, melting... the number of *legitimate* organizations on The List of 42™ now stands at 26. And as Buckets toiled tirelessly into the night, just for fun I decided to take a closer look at some of the "organizations" that remained to see if I get in on some of this sweet Chuckstomping, credibility-shredding action.

I started with "United Families Canada". UFC doesn't appear to have its own website, but there's a United Families International. "United Families Canada" isn't in UFI's list of chapters, but under "Projects" there's a link to a site called "Restore Marriage Canada", which claims to be a project of "United Families Canada".


United Families Canada has no website, no phone number, and -- great snappin' assholes, it's the Ghost of KLRVU, back to haunt me! But with no web presence, no contact info other than this email addy for "Restore Marriage Canada", and no way of finding out who heads up this group, should it even qualify as a "group"?

Or if UFC is really just UFI, an American organization, should they really be named in a complaint against a Canadian SC justice? Who knows, maybe anyone in the world can file a complaint... or maybe this is just another case of "astroturfing for Jesus". Seriously, if all that's needed is an email addy, any asshole could set up an "organization".

For all its amorphousness, United Families Canada has a few supporters. While I was searching for UFC on Google, I ended up on a "men's rights" blog that had a post about United Families Canada from back when the socons were furiously campaigning to roll back equal marriage. The site "masculinisme" is predictably anti-feminist, but its blogroll is the real motherlode of misogyny, linking sites with names like "women are sexists", "exposing feminism", "feminist filth", "feminists are the real terrorists" and "dump your wife now"... huh!? "Dump your wife now"!? That doesn't sound like family values stuff to me! Anyway, it's a seriously misogynist little web-scab. Which made me wonder why, when I scrolled down to the bottom, I found this:

Huh!?? Oh SUZANNE, you nefarious little gender-traitor, you! BUSTED!!!

UPDATE: Did I say 26 groups? D'oh! 25, baby!

Let the good times (and letters to the Globe & Mail) roll!

HAHAHAHAHA! Here in the Miscreants' Corner, it's been an asskickingly good time today since law blogger Christopher Bird took the fundies' complaint against Justice Beverley McLachlin out to the parking lot for a good beat down. But it's not all fun and games. There's work to do.

What have we got? Let's recap:

1. An entity misrepresenting itself as "42" groups, organizations, coalitions, circlejerks, whatever, when in fact (as meticulously documented by Buckets), there are at best 28 27 groups.

2. Even some of the "groups" within the Gang of 42™ were found not to be groups at all, but rather ideologically like-minded individuals. Sophistry like this -- a woman who runs a one-person wedding and marriage counseling service under the name of "Together for Life Ministries" and is counted as "an organization" -- is rampant.

3. According to Christopher Bird's spectacular smackdown, from a legal standpoint the complaint itself is bogus, misrepresenting not only the people who filed it, but Justice McLachlin, the Order of Canada process and the law itself:

"The Canada Family Action Coalition and their “42 organizations” have misrepresented themselves, misrepresented Chief Justice McLachlin and misrepresented the law. This is dishonest."

4. We have our intrepid mainstream media, who without a second of research or critical thought, swallowed whole the story barfed up by one of the shysters who's running this pernicious little scam, then regurgitated it for public consumption. (Including continuing to call McVety "doctor", a title he may or may not have earned.)

Those are the pieces to the puzzle.

Now. All summer long, McVety and his fellow socon travellers have been grousing and whining, gasping and swooning, shrieking and fainting about the Morgentaler Order of Canada. They've tried protests, facebook groups, medal returns, MASSIVE polls and more, all to no avail. The complaint against Justice McLachlin is just one more item in a laundry list of failed fetus fetishist fuckery. But MASSIVE POLLs are one thing, trying to have a Supreme Court Chief Justice impeached is another.

It's long past time for the MSM to look at the puzzle we've obligingly pieced together ('specially Buckets and Christopher) and publish the truth: start exposing these cheap chiselers and theocratic snake oil salesmen for the frauds they are. To start, let us make a not-so-joyful noise unto the Globe & Mail. To start.

UPDATE: Antonia Z gets it. If only the rest would follow her lead.

And the BLOGGER gazed upon her e-mail... and saw that it was GOOD.

Last night something came up in my Google alerts that looked interesting. It was a post at Court.ca, the Osgoode Law School blog, that seemed to indicate the complaint filed by the 42 Religious Groups™ against Justice McLachlin wasn't all it was cracked up to be.


So I clicked: 404. Damn. Google cache yielded nothing, obviously it was too recent a post. Fuck. But to my coffee-spewing delight, an email from Christopher Bird, the author of the post, informs me that the post is up now, baby, and WOOHOOHAHAHAHA, YES!

Christopher picks up the 42 Religious Groups™©® ball and runs with that awhile:

"In short, the list of “42 organizations” is shockingly dishonest even before it says anything, seeking to portray individuals as political organizations and overstating the political impact of the actual organizations by falsely multiplying their number."

...then he gets into the legal meat of the complaint itself and kicks its ass around the block.

Christopher winds up for the TKO:

"Of all the allegations contained within this deeply spurious letter, this is the most serious, which is no doubt why it led Chief Justice McLachlin to take the rare step of publicly addressing the matter. She explained that she did not lead discussion or even vote for Morgentaler, but merely chaired the meeting to make sure that the vote is conducted fairly. In response to this eminently reasonable answer, the Canada Family Action Coalition complained that she did not address their spurious complaints and insulted her repeatedly.

The Canada Family Action Coalition and their “42 organizations” have misrepresented themselves, misrepresented Chief Justice McLachlin and misrepresented the law. This is dishonest. More ironically, it is also un-Christian: as the Bible states in Isaiah 8:20, “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.”"

Oh, Chuck. Bad Chuck. NASTY Chuck. UN-Christian Chuck. THIS judge finds you GUILTY of LYING DOUCHEBAGGERY IN THE FIRST DEGREE, and hereby sentences you to a lifetime of watching an endless loop of "Young People Fucking"... oh wait, that's already ongoing, isn't it?

UPDATE: In my feverish Chuckstomping excitement, I didn't read any further than Christopher's email, but I see Pogge also emailed me about this, and posted about it. (Thanks, pogge!)

Keep talking, douchebags

After a 2-day window of stunned silence (and scrambling like chickens on speed to come up with a statement that might help mend their tattered credibility), there's finally been a response to Justice McLachlin's drop-kick to the withered nads of the 42 39 38 37 36 33 29 28(?) Religious Groups™ demanding her impeachment. And a slimy piece of goalpost-shifting sophistry it is, but what else would you expect from a vile scumbag and cheap chiseler like Charles McVety?:

"However, Dr. McVety, whose organization launched a complaint to the Canadian Judicial Council about the Chief Justice's conduct in the Morgentaler matter, said her explanation implicates her even more deeply in misconduct. "We* were quite astonished to read reports of what she had said," Dr. McVety said.

"We never accused her of voting. We accused her of disregarding the constitution that she is bound to serve. By expressing her approval of the process, she is expressing approval of Morgentaler's activism on abortion."

*"We" -- heh. And so what? Abortion is a legal procedure, so who cares if McLachlin approves of it or not? Well, there's an answer for that, too:

"Dr. McVety said that as the chair of a committee that is instrumental in conferring honours on individuals, some of whom may represent controversial causes that could come before the Supreme Court, the Chief Justice's independence is automatically compromised." (emphasis mine)

"Controversial causes that might come before the Supreme Court" -- like abortion, maybe?

It's become abundantly clear that the religious whackjobs and crotch-sniffers are hoping for some kind of court action involving abortion in the foreseeable future, probably initiated by Bill C-484 (if it passed, which is unlikely), and are working feverishly to ensure that no womens' rights-favouring judge will screw it up for them. If they can't stack the Supreme Court with conservatives by appointment, they'll do it by attrition. That's one of the reasons this bogus complaint won't go anywhere -- if McVety was successful in having one justice removed, that would just be the beginning.

It's funny how they totally miss the underlying meaning of this whole Morgentaler thing, which is that Justice McLachlin's independence hasn't been compromised for the simple reason that abortion rights will never come before the Supreme Court again. Ever. It's already been done, and no government with an instinct of self-preservation would even think about doing it again, regardless of what some of the fundamentalist chimps in caucus might say.

"42" isn't the answer to everything...

Saturday started on a bad enough note for the fetus fetishists, when Justice Beverley McLachlin took their mewling complaints about her supposed involvement in the Morgentaler Order of Canada straight out to the woodshed for a good flogging. The revelation that McLachlin had nothing to do with the Morgentaler appointment left the "42 religious groups" who sought her impeachment too busy wiping egg from their faces to respond to Judge Bev's righteous smackdown.

But while the MSM dutifully continued to refer to the "42 religious groups", some of us idly wondered just what "42 groups" really meant. Bene D published a list of all the groups behind the complaint, and it turned out that some of them weren't groups at all, but individuals and businesses. It was already a given that a few of the groups probably had some serious overlap -- different names, but basically run by and representing the same people. It's an American strategy that McVety imported to Canada -- establish a shitload of groups, coalitions and organizations to make the religious right "grassroots" look bigger and more important than it really is. So it was assumed that the "42 religious groups" were probably less than the sum of their parts.

Then Buckets got interested.

Oh fuck.

At that point, the fetus fetishists' day just went from bad to worse.

As he started researching and cross-referencing the groups on the list of 42 and eliminating individuals and overlap, Buckets found the number of legitimate "groups" coming down a bit... and a bit more... and more... and even more... and still more... at this point, who knows how low it will go?

So what we have here is a small coalition of religious right ideologues, misrepresenting themselves as "42 groups", erroneously filing a complaint seeking the removal of a Supreme Court Judge. That's serious fuckery -- serious enough that the MSM should be asking some very pointed questions about these people, their organizations, their tax status, and why they were able to push this as far as they did under such false pretenses. Will they?

UPDATE: Down down down it goes, where it stops, who the fuck knows?