1559 APPLICATIONS REJECTED BY LIBERALS

   More than 1,550 applications were rejected for grant money through the Canada Summer Jobs program this year because of “issues” related to a controversial new box on the form, according to the federal government.
     Under rules introduced last winter, organizations must check off a box on their application confirming that both their “core mandate” and the job they want to use federal money to fill respect the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms — as well as other rights.

   But some faith-based groups, backed by the Conservatives in the House of Commons, have said they can’t check the box without violating their beliefs surrounding abortion or LGBTQ communities. They’ve argued that the government has no business forcing its own ideology on them.

LIBERAL CONCERN BASED ON VOTE LOSS

   The Liberals have switched to more hardline messaging around asylum seekers, say pollsters and observers, as the government’s response has left it open to attack in the face of increasing irregular border crossings and charges from the Conservatives that the Grits are soft on border security.
    Politically, the challenge and vulnerability for the Liberals is especially acute among first-generation and new-Canadian communities, said Jackie Choquette, vice-president at Hill+Knowlton Strategies, which both parties have been targeting and fighting over for several elections.

   “That’s traditionally been a huge area of support for the Liberal Party,” said the former provincial Liberal staffer, and an area where they could lose votes

MORNEAU WILLING TO INDEMNIFY TRANS MOUNTAIN

   OTTAWA — If Kinder Morgan wants to abandon plans to build the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, there are plenty of other investors out there willing to take up the cause — and they will have the backing of the federal Liberal government, Finance Minister Bill Morneau says.
    The government is willing to "provide indemnity" to any investors, be they the project's original architects or otherwise, to ensure the controversial Alberta-B.C.. project is able to proceed, Morneau told a news conference Wednesday.
    The announcement, coming on the very day when the company's Calgary-based Canadian operation is scheduled to hold its annual meeting, bore the hallmarks of an effort to ratchet up the pressure in advance of Kinder Morgan's May 31 deadline.

THE RELIGION OF RACISM

   If you don’t believe that racism is significant, you challenge their entire reason for being.
   And the religion of racism meets these challenges by manufacturing a racial crisis as it strings together anecdotal incidents from a Waffle House to a New York City apartment to a student dorm to a coffee shop, to support its unified field theory of universal bigotry and suppress skepticism about its powers.
    The puritanical panic has less to do with fear of racism than the emotional needs of the witch hunters. Informing on your neighbors, denouncing fellow students and becoming the center of attention is emotionally fulfilling for the same psychological reasons that it was for the Salem accusers, the Parisian mobs of the French Revolution and the rampaging Communist students of the Cultural Revolution.

SECOND GENERATION GREEN BULLSH!TTER

    WASHINGTON – Karenna Gore, director of the Center for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary, urged the Catholic Church and other “faith communities” to become climate change activists and preach about taking action on the issue.
    “I actually think that [preaching is] one of the main things that could actually break through on this issue. One of the ways that we could break through on this issue is if people really start to think deeply on another level about it; on a moral and spiritual level and are moved from a different kind of place to take action, to raise it with their elected representatives, to make it inform their individual choices but also our political agenda, to be constantly saying, why are we building up more fossil fuels? Why don't we switch to a new renewable energy?”
   Gore, the eldest daughter of former Vice President Al Gore, compared the climate change movement to the civil rights movement.

UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL GETS SCHOOLED

On Tuesday morning, Nikki Haley spoke at the United Nations Security Council meeting regarding the embassy move in Israel and the violence in Gaza that took place on Monday.

Ambassador Haley's remarks were perfect and on point. That's her style: She calmly and deliberately carpet bombs the UNSC with reality.

LIE DETECTING COMPUTER KIOSKS AT BORDER

• A virtual border agent kiosk was developed to interview travelers at airports and border crossings and it can detect deception to flag human security agents.
• The U.S., Canada and European Union have tested the technology, and one researcher says it has a deception detection success rate of up to 80 percent, or better than human agents.
• The technology relies on sensors and biometrics, and its lie-detection capabilities are based on eye movements or changes in voice, posture and facial gestures.