Had It With the Fords?

Do something.

Jude MacDonald (twitter) has been doing heroic work in trying to stop the fucking Fords' abuse of City Hall property and resources for political campaigning.

Such activity is verboten.

And it's pretty clear.

VII. ELECTION CAMPAIGN WORK

Members are required to follow the provisions of the Municipal Elections Act, 1996. No member shall use the facilities, equipment, supplies, services or other resources of the City (including Councillor newsletters and websites linked through the City’s website) for any election campaign or campaign-related activities. No member shall undertake campaign-related activities on City property during regular working hours unless permitted by City policy (e.g., all candidates meetings). No member shall use the services of persons for election-related purposes during hours in which those persons receive any compensation from the City.

According to Jude, the person responsible for maintaining proper conduct is the City Manager. Email: talktocitymanager@toronto.ca

I wrote to both my councillor and the City Manager.

You can too.

Find your councillor's contact information.

Here's what I wrote.

Dear City Manager/Councillor:

Mainly from Twitter -- the mainstream media does not seem to think this is worth reporting -- I have been watching for months the Fords misuse City Hall property and resources for political campaigning.

I realize that there is some leeway possible in interpreting what is campaigning and what is communicating but yesterday I believe there was an unequivocal case of blatantly illegal use of City resources.

Jeff Silverstein, former campaign staffer for Rob Ford and now apparently in the employ of Doug Ford, was seen entering the Mayor's office yesterday and spending some considerable time there with Doug and others. CP24 confirmed the sighting, along with many ordinary individuals.

The Mayor is in hospital and has withdrawn his candidacy for mayor.

Mr. Silverstein is not an employee of the City. There is zero possible justification for this action.

Doug Ford is continuing to abuse his position as brother of the mayor. Now that he is a candidate himself, it is time -- finally -- to take him to task and force him to stop.

City Hall staff must be instructed to follow protocol and inform the necessary officials when there are similar breaches of security.

I don't know what other measures can be taken, but they should bloody well be taken.

Thank you for your time.

And here's how a concerned citizen responded to my report on Twitter that I had done it.

.@TerryTowel1 At least I sent in a pissed-off dust-catcher. Not much we can do but I'm fucking well going to do it. #topoli

— Fern Hill (@fernhilldammit) September 16, 2014

The fucking Fords will continue to get away with egregious behaviour unless they're stopped.

And apparently, nobody but us citizens is willing to at least try.


UPDATE (Sept. 17/14): Action!

Toronto’s rules are clear: incumbents can’t use their city-funded offices for election purposes. After complaints from residents, some of them affiliated with the Rob Ford Must Go/Doug Ford Must Go sit-in outside the mayor’s office, city manager Joe Pennachetti is planning to send a “reminder regarding the policy to all members of council” this week, city spokeswoman Wynna Brown said.

Brown would not say whether the reminder was prompted by complaints about the mayor’s office in particular.

Oh, rilly?

Remember the Ottawa cop who abused a Black woman?

Sgt Steven Desjourdy has a new job. That's him on the right.

Yes Desjourdy - who should NOT even be allowed within 10 metres of any woman in police custody - now works in the division that investigates human trafficking.

In April this year - yes in 2014 - Desjourdy was "found guilty of discreditable conduct at an internal Ottawa police disciplinary hearing into a widely reported, controversial cellblock strip search in 2008.

In September 2008, Desjourdy left a female prisoner half naked in pants soaked with urine; her shirt and bra had been cut off during a strip search [...]

It took more than three hours for Desjourdy to provide her with temporary clothing called a blue suit."

DAMMIT JANET! has written about Desjourdy or pointed to him in reference to cop violence towards women in police custody.

For example, this: "a judge recently exonerated the sexualized brutality that a police officer used against a woman detained for alleged public intoxication - a "charge" which was never actually shown to be founded.

Violent cops like Steve Desjourdy sexually humiliate, degrade and punish jailed women with impunity. His actions which were challenged in criminal court, have been excused and thus can become the official standard that police taking women into custody can apply.

According to the judge who presided over the trial, Desjourdy "used reasonable force".

Many who viewed the internal video that captured Desjourdy and his colleagues' actions, observed that he seemed to be enjoying his job, exerting force in order to break the detained woman's will and her instinct to defend herself from the cops' deliberate, sexualized violations." 

Meanwhile, last week some Harper government MPs staged a series of opportunistic histrionics at the Justice Committee, ostensibly to hear presentations from women who have been trafficked and religious groups hoping to receive a large chunk of money in return for rescuing stigmatized victims they'll rehabilitate and pity, ALL in support of C36.

ADDED: This from Kate Heartfield captures the intent of the CPC dog-and-pony show, as well as the very worst moment when the chortling, snorting, oinking Con MP Goguen tried to score points against a lawyer (who substantiated his opposition to C36 with evidence) by badgering a multiple-rapes survivor.

(DJ! does NOT support C36; it is contempt for women and for the law.  In that blogpost, I reminded Peter MacKay - so greatly disgusted with "perverts" who purchase sexual services - that he might direct some of his outrage towards a certain Con politician, a buddy of Harper who subjected his wife to the very degradation that so incensed the Minister of Justice. Juxtapose this with the passage here, where Rob Ford offered up Renata to anyone interested. Procurement, or trafficking his wife. Is that a Ford family value?)

Back at the Justice Committee hearings, law enforcement witnesses like Chiefs of police supporting C36 were unable to explain why current criminal code sanctions against human trafficking aren't being enforced to stop "procurement" and the enslavement of women into forced sex work through threats, confinement and other brutal methods.  

And the focus of MP Joy Smith's (yes, the MP who hired Vic Toews' mistress) attention at the hearings was riveted upon the horrific, brutal stories told by women who had been trafficked.

Despite numerous fundamentalist religious groups vehemently claiming thousands upon thousands of women are sexually assaulted 10, 20, 30 times daily, very few police investigations, arrests, charges, and prosecutions of human trafficking are being followed through in any rigorous or systematic way.

On the last day of the hearings Christa Big Canoe of the Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto challenged the legal sloppiness of the pro-C36 crowd who used trafficking, and prostituting as synonyms for one and same criminal activity.  

MPs should distinguish between sex work and human trafficking as they consider bringing in a new prostitution law to replace the one struck down last year by the Supreme Court, an expert said Thursday.
After three days of often heart-wrenching testimony, the House justice committee is wrapping up the first phase of its work on the government's proposed prostitution law rewrite.
Many of the witnesses told horrifying tales of being trafficked and abused, while others spoke in favour of letting sex workers choose to sell their services.
Christa Big Canoe, legal advocacy director at Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto, summarized the divide following 20 hours of hearings.
"[What] we're hearing a lot from a lot of the witnesses is the interconnectedness, but what we're not hearing is the distinct differences between trafficking and sex work," she said.
Big Canoe suggested better enforcing Canada's existing human trafficking laws if MPs are worried about the problem. Studies of human trafficking, she said, talk about how elusive the traffickers are.
"So the question I have to this committee is, how is that going to change by the provisions that you're now proposing, and what can be done to change that if it's not already occurring?"
The committee has heard from police officers that it's difficult to charge alleged human traffickers and that some law enforcement agencies use the threat of charges against prostitutes to extricate them and have them provide evidence against the traffickers.
Big Canoe pointed out that last year's Supreme Court ruling known as Bedford dealt specifically with Canada's prostitution laws.
"Bedford was about sex work. It wasn't about trafficking. We have laws in Canada about trafficking that aren't actually being used well. 

So Sgt Desjourdy, "known to police" for brutalizing women in police custody, is assigned to Human Trafficking at the Ottawa Police Services.

What sadistic person in Human Resources assumed this bully and abuser of women would be an appropriate fit for law enforcement tactics which Prohibitionists and Evangelicals are counting upon to "extricate" women from coerced sex work, arrest them, threaten them until they agree to testify against their traffickers then afterwards dump them somewhere, perhaps in the basement of a church where Harper Conservative business men can exploit them as "regular" low-waged-with-no-benefits workers.  

Oh. Wait.

Grand merci @kwetoday whose tweet tipped me off to Desjourdy's new job.

C36 = CONtempt for women and CONtempt for the law.

Last week Justice Minister Peter MacKay, channeling all the prurient lunacy of General Jack D. Ripper and the worst pearl-clutching clichés of a Victorian schoolmarm, presented Bill C36 in the House of Commons.

The language Petey used and repeated for emphasis was quite revealing.

Harper and MacKay's new bill - C36 The Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, the latest CPC government crap legislation and named the opposite of what it actually does - offers in one venal and meretricious piece of legal flimflam the worst of Con bias, prejudice and hatred.

It is a loathsome pottage of spitefulness (directed at the Supreme Court of Canada), class prejudice, racism, misogyny and fundamentalist religiosity.

The reaction on Twitter ranged from pithy excoriations by sex workers, lawyers, non-abolitionist feminists, charter experts and human rights advocates, to PMO-issued speaking points barked by CPC trained seals and fatuous accolades by anti-prostitution organizations.

This perspective was odd and interesting, with a focus on the utilitarian and economic aspects of sex work which allows a detached evaluation of the Nordic and New Zealand models. However its breezy conclusion: 
«..because the government regulates the activities of industries in which workers are put at risk, but also because machines have replaced much of the dangerous work that was previously done by workers the current state of technology is such that machines will soon be capable of providing the same services currently provided by sex workers. You don’t have to be an economist to predict that while governments have failed to reduce participation in the sex trades, technology is very likely to succeed» 
doesn't address the very basic human needs this service industry meets - and that machinery would likely not.

The last decades have seen an expanded commercial development of dolls that replicate some aspect of human bodies; though some are crafted to resemble in minute details all physical details of known porn actors, they are essentially very expensive, static silicone sex toys.  There's a niche market for (mostly) men whose sexual proclivities are geared towards the forcible penetration of beautifully crafted, inert objets d'art with compliant orifices.  It's worth glancing at the NSFW websites of Real Doll, Doll Story and Fantasy Sex Dolls to get a sense of which traits are valued and deemed desirable.

This segues aptly into the most lucid, trenchant and fierce deconstruction of sex work that I have read.

«What is prostitution? Are women selling a service, or are they selling themselves, as a commodity?

Many supporters of the Nordic model, both in feminist and family-values circles, say it’s the latter. Prostitution, they say, is a commodity sale. It is inherently objectifying and exploitative, they argue. It is itself a harm, even if all the associated harms can be eliminated. A woman who believes she is freely choosing her job has to be wrong about that, they argue. She is a victim whether she knows it or not.

Conservative MP Joy Smith is one of the strongest voices on this side of the debate, who says she recognizes “prostitution as an industry that is inherently harmful to women and girls and therefore must be eliminated.” She favours the Nordic model.

If you believe that selling sex means selling women, you believe that a woman’s value equals her capacity to have sex.

Framing this as a gender-equality argument is ironic, because that same notion underpins many of the world’s most sexist ideas — including the idea, still in place in some parts of the world, that rape is a property crime.

We in Canada don’t generally talk about rape that way any more, but we still use that language when we talk about prostitution. We use phrases like “selling her body” or even “selling herself” — rather than “selling sex.”

To assume that prostitution commodifies women, we have to also think a certain way about heterosexual sex. We have to think of it as male access to a woman’s body — not as something a woman does with her body. This is the "why buy the cow when you’re getting the milk for free" way of seeing women’s sexuality. Again, not exactly a gender-equality argument.»

(I interrupt Kate Heartfield's thoughtful prose with a crude example that illustrates how a married woman, in this case a politician's wife, is subjected to that very degradation that so incensed MacKay. Juxtapose this with the passage here in which Rob Ford attempts to traffick Renata. Also, if sex-workers were to publish clients' names, all would see that putative "family-values" rightwing Con men make up the majority of their lists.) 

«There is another way of looking at sex: that a woman’s value as a human being has nothing to do with whom she chooses to have sex with or how often or what conditions she imposes on that choice. If this is our assumption, then a woman who sells sex is not selling herself. She isn’t turning herself into a commodity, and neither is anyone else. Sex is merely the service she sells.»

Registered and practical nurses, athletes, child care workers, lawyers, therapists, morticians: all provide professional services that sometimes require that they engage in a particular activity that some people might find repellant and disgusting. The specific *ickiness* of a task does not detract from the knowledge, respect and dignity they bring to their jobs

What is most disappointing to me in this whole debate is the participation of abolitionist feminists who give credence to Andrea Dworkin's pragmatic and ideological analysis of women's bodies as pornographed and fetishized commodities.  Believing this construct to be so deeply embedded in all institutions that it cannot be uprooted, they think that in order to limit the horrific harm that's done to women who are trafficked or trapped by poverty and many vulnerabilities in the "sex trade", they are obliged to align themselves with punitive and sex-phobic Reformatory Evangelical conservative legislation.

Whatever their expertise, critics of C36 agree that it will NOT keep women safe; it will probably endanger them MORE than the old law did.

And, just in case you know people who still don't get why C36 is so MASSIVELY WRONG, direct them to Tabatha Southey's splendid slam dunk.

ADDED: Money for sex, sex for money is a personal reflection on sex work that I posted in March this year.

MORE: Joyce Arthur deconstructs the toxic misogynist religious ideology at the core of C36.

Forget the Gong Show, Let's Concentrate on City Council

Well, Matt Galloway on MetroMorning did the best job (so far) of any interviewer's attempt to hold Rob Fucking Ford to account.

Given this, at least:

No interviewer can possibly keep up with the volume velocity of Rob Ford's lies.

— Ryan Day (@lizzhatesme) March 28, 2014

But there are still seven months to go for interviewers and opponents to learn how better to deal with RFF's bullshit. We live in hope.

If RFF's tenure has taught us anything, it's that while a mayor can embarrass the hell out of us, under a weak mayor system, she or he needs collaborators on council to get things done.

I propose turning our attention away from the giant gong show that is the mayoral race to wannabe city councillors.

We need to rid Council of the morons, the toadies, and the mindlessly ambitious, which of course puts Mammo at the top of the heap, overlapping all categories as he does so effectively.

OK, then. Here is an immensely useful graphic (more about its provenance below*). I'm sorry it's kind of hard to read.

It's arranged in rings by year, innermost being 2011, when RFF had max influence. Note how much support he had then.

By 2012, less support, more opposition. Even more so by 2013.

For an overview, this is very handy. For my money, no one with a preponderance of blue and green should be returned to office.

Here is the list of current councillors. Find yours.

Next step, follow @GraphicMatt who has been doing heroic work in tracking how each councillor voted, presented in colour-coded tables.

Some examples here and here. You can also find his work at
MetroNews.

Decide whether your incumbent deserves your support. If so, get your butt out for him or her.

If not, check out who else is running. Here is the current list of contenders. The list will no doubt grow. Some incumbents have not yet registered. And some contenders are probabaly still testing the waters.

Check them out. Find someone with ideas, integrity, and a lively sense of civic responsibility.

For example, Dan Fox is contesting Ward 24, now held by blue/green Ford-supporter David Shiner. Dan could use some volunteers.

Remember that the mayor, while potentially possessed of great persuasive power, has only one vote.

There are 44 others that -- collectively -- matter more.

*Provenance of graphic: It was tweeted by cinemaven. I asked and looked but couldn't find an original, even though it says "thegridto.com" in the corner. I tweeted a couple of times asking for help and got no joy. In particular, I complained about how hard it was to read, how it needed embiggening.

Well. In my email last night was a message from Ace Blogger and Photoshopper Extraordinaire Alison @ Creekside, with an improved and slightly embiggened version of the chart. Yes, that Alison, who to the dismay of the masses does NOT have a Twitter account. So, how did she get my bat signal Alison signal?

She's not saying, is she? Me, I think she has an alter ego on Twitter. Maybe @80sDougFord. Feel free to speculate in the comments.


ADDED: Of course there are municipal elections across Ontario this year. All of us need to do our duty and vote good people in.

Money for sex, sex for money.

Time for a little self-disclosure.

Women, has a man ever offered you money to have sex with him?

It happened to me, twice.

About 10 years ago I was heading home after working late.  My Sandy Hill neighbourhood features some dilapidated buildings offering single rooms for rent to students and other transients.  There's also city-sponsored lodgings and transition housing.  Two men schlepping a 24 walked past me, one of them trying to engage me in conversation, for the purpose of checking out whether I'd like to "party" with them.  When I expressed my lack of interest in them or their plans, the other man offered me money as an incentive.

I walked into the lobby of an apartment building and waited 30 minutes before I felt it was safe to go to my own house where I lived alone since my daughter had graduated.

When I was young and silly, I crashed a private party with a friend of mine. It was the 80s; the theme was Movie Stars and Hookers. The two of us - decked out in tatty Rocky Horror Show duds - dropped into a Victorian era townhouse in Ottawa, checked out the activities and left after an hour.  Yes, there was "free" food, booze and blow - but as I suspected, those came with an invisible price tag.

I had heard about the party from an acquaintance at work, which is probably how The Lobbyist found me.  Out of the blue, I got an invitation, via the colleague, to have lunch with a man who had co-hosted the event.  Intrigued, I accepted and thus caught a glimpse of a most unsavoury side of politics.

He offered employment; attached to the impressive salary were ambiguous tasks and responsibilities that could be described as networking and maintaining favourable private relations with Important Men.

I declined.

Now, radical feminists and abolitionists believe that all "good" women should be offended by men who offer payment for sex.  I wasn't offended, I simply didn't want to engage in that kind of work.  Nor do I wish to be employed as a registered nurse, a zoo-keeper, a short-order cook or an early childhood educator although I have benevolently taken on some of the chores involved in the work these professionals do, as part of my commitment and willingness to care for those I love.

Was I concerned for my personal safety?  Of course.  In the first case, I didn't want those two men to know where I lived.  As for the second offer ... Sex work is work.  Like being a professional athlete, there are physical risks involved.  

In the 80s, the feminist therapist Dr Helen Kaplan, "a pioneer in the field of sex therapy and founder of the country's first clinic for sexual disorders established at a medical school", advanced a savvy comparative analysis of the working conditions of prostitutes and professional athletes.  When religious moralizing and weepy calls to rescue victimized fallen women are removed from the equation, professional sex-work and sports-playing are remarkably similar.

Truthfully, there are disgusting men that most women would never fuck for love or money but are compelled and coerced to do so by religious, political or social reasons.  Fear of economic reprisals as well as the threat of emotional and physical abuse are also factors.  

These "clients" are called husbands.  I hasten to add, those particular husbands who feel entitled, by virtue of marriage, to use their wives as flesh-holes.

And, à propos de rien, are Toronto taxpayers footing the bill for Rob Ford's trip to attend the Academy Awards?  Since the Mascot Mayor won't be "eating at home", will his sponsor Jimmy Kimmel pick up the tab for Rob and his entourage's entertainment suite in Hollywood?

Also, read this and this about the Harper government's attempts to re-criminalize prostitution.

Who ya gonna call?

Super Nanny!

On Twitter just now:

Hey, d'you think SuperNanny would help us out with our mayor? Anyone have her contact details?

— Laura (@LauraCEStewart) February 25, 2014

I've actually seen Super Nanny. I don't have children, but the show is fascinating in a train-wreck kinda way.

Have a look at this audition, aka plea, from this family, called "When your child's the school bully."





Too bad Super Nanny wasn't around when the Fords were children.

Not that Diane (The Enabler In Chief) Ford would have called.

Doug and Rob Ford, the morality police and patriotism.

Yes, you read that correctly.

For three days in a row, the political horror show known as Doug and Rob Ford has been exploiting homophobia in all its multiple hate-mongering facets to further ingratiate themselves with their bigoted fans and followers.

On Wednesday at the first mayoral candidates' forum of the 2014 Toronto municipal election, Mayor Mascot made a point of disclosing that his non-attendance at Toronto Pride is a personal and political boycott.

“I’m not going to go to Pride Parade. I’ve never gone to a Pride Parade so I’m not going to change the way I am,” Ford said.

On Thursday at City Hall, his brother Doug defended his brother's position by attacking the Pride Parade. In a four minute tirade about the event, he said five times that seeing "buck naked men" was disturbing.

In response to Ford's putative not-homophobic screed, Kristyn Wong-Tam who represents the ward that includes Church-Wellesley, and a blatant non-heterosexual councillor said:

Doug Ford [seems] to be doing “a bit of baiting,” possibly to “appeal to a homophobic base within his supporters.”

She said Pride is “so much more than just a handful of people who decide to express themselves in ways that not everyone would understand.” Referring to the mayor’s own controversial behaviour, she said his administration is not in a position to criticize the morality of others.

“Should the morality police descend on the mayor’s office or the mayor’s home, they may have something to say about public drunken stupors and behaviour, crack cocaine use, the allegations of domestic assault (a charge against Rob Ford was dropped in 2008), marijuana and hash dealing (Doug Ford has denied a Globe report that he was a dealer in the 1980s), improper use of city resources, drunken outrage, public urination, cultural appropriation of a Jamaican accent. I would imagine that it’s best not to judge,” Wong-Tam said.

Doug Ford has used such rhetoric before. In opposing a city hall bike station with public showers, he said the facility would turn into a “bathhouse” involving “hanky-panky” and “a towel boy handing out towels.”

On Friday this happened.

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford appears to have lost a fight to remove a rainbow flag flying at city hall.

The flag, an international symbol of gay rights, went up on one of the many flagpoles outside city hall on Friday, just as the opening ceremonies of the Winter Games were underway in Russia.

The flag-raising was meant as a response to Olympic host country Russia's anti-gay laws. Several other municipalities around Canada have done the same.

Ford wanted it taken down as soon as he saw it.
The Olympics, "is about being patriotic to your country, this is not about someone's sexual preference," he told reporters.

But it's not his decision to have the flag taken down. The city's protocol officer is the only one who decides what flags fly from the city hall`s "courtesy" pole. That pole hosts all sorts of flags during the year — for autism week, fair trade, and to honour the national days of dozens of countries, from Azerbaijan to Israel. The Canadian flag is always flying on several other poles around city hall.

My co-blogger Fern Hill went looking for news items about rainbow flags flying in other Canadian cities; she also discovered what hisser means in French.  Which led her to craft these bilingual bon mots:

Check out the LOVESOCHi campaign in support of gay rights — and its magnificent photos — on Twitter. 

Should Doug Ford be told by an adult to shut up?

Last week we wrote this, about Doug Ford and his histrionics.

The more bullies like him and Rob bellow their loathsome discourse, the quicker it become evident how mendacious they truly are.

Today Doug Ford described Karen Stintz in disparaging terms, at a Toronto council meeting about how the city might handle future natural disasters like the ice storm. The Fordzilla brothers reacted to her criticism about Rob Ford's activities with their well-honed two-fer tactics: temper tantrums and name-calling.

From here: “You saw for the first time Karen Stintz going unglued. I’ve seen it numerous times,..." Doug Ford said.

Norm Wilner is a seasoned observer of the Toronto political and cultural environment.  He also tweeted this:

Before the council meeting, Mayor Ford was asked by reporters about his campaigning activities on the weekend.  A female journalist had the temerity to ask him if he had been drinking. His response was to suggest she was jealous - yes jealous - of the prurient attention that he draws when he appears in public.

Wilmer's observation about Rob Ford's attitudes towards women was not pulled out of thin air.  

In December, Ford said: "Women love money," [...] Ford added that while he planned to get his wife "some treats on the side," his big gift to her would be "a nice cheque." "I get a basket and flowers and a little bit of this and that, but at the end of the day, she wants her cash," he said. "So I give her a nice cheque and we're all happy." 

From here.  

The Sun reported recently that Ford bragged about what he did give his spouse Renata at Christmas. 

Since Ford doesn't let his wife talk to reporters, we'll have to take his word that "she's really really happy".

At this point, Diane, the Ford matriarch, may be the only one who might be able to get Doug and Rob to shut up.  Though it's unlikely she would do so; she gets gratification from her boys attacking women who are councillors and journalists and professionals; they are paid to speak their mind.  That's not why women get "a nice cheque" in the Ford family.  

My co-blogger fernhill has written quite a bit about the dysfunctional Fords. 

iSlamming Rob Ford!

Unintended outcome ... for the win!

Cue the shrieeeking from Ford Nation and other rightwing nut jobs.

Has Ezra Levant seen this?

The above is probably a consequence of Rob's incoherent rant at Toronto City council on Monday.

Bigger fish...

Through all the mind-numbing histrionics of the Rob Ford saga, the large pachyderm in the room is not the Mayor himself but THE question: what could be the target of Toronto police investigations?

It was StunTV Ezra Levant who indirectly raised the edge of the rug, with his habitual shrieeking excesses on the Ford Nation premiere* yesterday. His flamboyant misdirection might have backfired, in this case.

At DJ! we started wondering about the Fords' agenda, back when Rob tried so desperately to bring a casino to Toronto.

Gambling and organized crime are long-time associates. It's worth noting that Sheldon Adelson is a huge supporter of the Republican party, and is currently under investigation.

And now, the Fords have retained the counsel of George Rust-d'Eye** to defend Rob's interests. Some say he's an over-rated, over-priced, way past his best-before-date shill. Will taxpayers have to pay for Crack Mayor's legal bills?

Rust-D'Eye is known for spectacular invoices that he believes reflect every penny's worth of his *expertise*, and his overbearing manner of delivery.

A carefully cultivated façade of punctilious and unctuous civility... The man has a history of advancing semi-truth, under the cover of legal advice and 'integrity'... though eventually facts do surface.

But back to Levant. The overweening excuse for his trademark trashy and flashy infotainment glurge: that he has a civic duty to speculate about the underbelly of his ideological and political opponents.

So, let's speculate about the Fords, shall we?  Are investigations also probing the possible existence of organized crime schemes? 

Is the family business involved with wise guys?  Did the illegal adolescent antics of Doug, Kathy and Rob provide leverage to pressure Doug Senior into mutually beneficial business arrangements?

There are historical precedents.  The Kennedy dynasty and wealth was founded on criminal entrepreneurship.  And the stench never left that cursed, tragic family, in spite of patriarch Joe's obssessive drive for respectability and political power.

Consider the range of resources dedicated to Ford surveillance.  It only makes sense to use a plane and that level of staff deployment if there's much, much more involved than only Rob scoring dope. Are there many Canadian and US law-enforcement agencies conducting forensic analysis to follow financial transactions and shipment of goods? 

Project Traveller looked at guns and gangs. Project Brazen dealt with drug dealers.

What else could there be... Money-laundering? Drug-smuggling? Contracted murders?

What other factual dots remain to be connected?

Here's a link to a brilliant compilation of Ford Bros shenanigans from Alison at Creekside. The picture at the top is her work.

My co-blogger fern hill has done much heavy lifting to date, in blogposts after blogposts about dodgy and bizarre Ford clan machinations, as well as documents linking them to criminal elements.

If TPS investigators have diligently and scrupulously gathered evidence required so that charges can be filed, and prosecutors can make their case, it will be an EPIC take-down.  No wonder Police Chief Blair was so circumspect during his media conference.

Unfortunately, the Fords (and their silent business partners?) have deep, deep pockets.  

As with Michael Bryant, lawyers will use all the legal tactics and loopholes available to get their clients off the hook, if the TPS investigation even gets to trial.

It was clearly said here, you can bully and bluff your way out of anything, when you're a wealthy, christian, well-CONnected, privileged, heterosexual and cis white man.

*Just when I was about to publish this blogpost, we heard that StunTV has aborted Ford Nation.  Darn.  And I was about to launch the hashtag #FORdNicATION, too!

** Thanks to our Vaughn insiders who steered me towards more info about Rust-D'Eye.

Holy Trademark Infringement!

So, today our Crack Mayor signed bobbleheads for idiots people who waited in line for hours. He signed and schmoozed for four hours.

It's all good. It's for charity.

But then the bobbleheads ran out, but the line-up didn't, so he started signing t-shirts.

Ruh-roh. Wonder what the Ford Motor Company thinks of being connected to a crack-smoking, criminal-associating moron.

Not to mention trademark infringement.

Stay tuned. And if you're on the Twitter, retweet this.

Hey @FordCanada! Have a look at this. pic.twitter.com/2iqgaaQXs7 You good with it? #topoli

— Fern Hill (@fernhilldammit) November 12, 2013

Photo via Don Peat

UPDATE: Ah. It is revealed.

A woman in the crowd is apparently selling the Ford Nation t-shirts with the car company's logo

— Ben Spurr (@BenSpurr) November 12, 2013

She was ejected from City Hall. Selling stuff not allowed.

MORE UPDATE:

Ford Motor Company did not grant permission for the use of its logo and thank you for bringing this to our attention.

— Ford Canada (@FordCanada) November 12, 2013

Keep digging!

 Harper, Ford, Flaherty and some other entitled person.

The photograph was used last evening at this event, sponsored by the Canadian Labour Congress.

Julie Lalonde did a presentation for Hollaback! Ottawa.

I'll post more about that later; my DSL is wonky and my internet connection tenuous at the moment - the aftermath of last night's deluge.

In the meantime fellas, keep digging!  If you're as persistent about doing that as you are at serving corporate interests, you'll have burrowed your way to China, eventually ...

Is that a politician in your pocket?

So, Jabba the Mayor got wasted last night and wandered around Taste of the Danforth, where he was caught on video. NOW has the story with links to videos here. I may blog on this later, but for now I want to focus on another story about Ford that broke yesterday.

First, though, consider this photo that Edward Keenan wrote about last week under the title, 'The photo that gets more incriminating all the time'.

Anyhow, forget the video for at least a moment. Think about the photograph. In the picture above, there are four men. One is dead, two are under arrest, and one is the mayor of Toronto.

Keenan details all the links the photo has to 'brutal violence and the gun and drug trades, or both', and winds up with:

One murder, two shootings, one stabbing, one home invasion and beating with a pipe, four arrests, many search warrants, and the mayor of Canada’s largest city.

Forget the video. The photo provides enough troubling questions on its own.

Indeed. Many, many troubling questions.

And now there are more.

Late yesterday, the Toronto Sun (the Toronto Sun!) ran this exclusive.

“You owe me money,” a convicted drug peddler screamed at Rob Ford after bursting into the mayor’s home and later threatening to kill him.

Court documents recently obtained by the Toronto Sun reveal stunning new details about the mayor’s frightening run-in with a man who once had close ties to the Ford family — an incident that occurred in Rob Ford’s Etobicoke home and raises more questions in the wake of the crack cocaine allegations that have been dogging him.

A strung out Scott MacIntyre, the ex-boyfriend of Ford’s sister Kathy, entered uninvited through the unlocked front door of the Edenbridge Dr. house around 7:30 a.m. on Jan. 11, 2012, and began screaming about debts that needed to be paid, according to the documents.

“You owe me money, your sister owes me money, if I don’t get it, they will kill me,” MacIntyre, then 45, yelled at the mayor, who rushed to confront his sister’s longtime common law partner.

The documents — a transcript from MacIntyre’s court appearance at 2201 Finch Ave. W. on Apr. 23, 2012 — include an agreed statement of facts submitted during his guilty plea.

Scribd version of the transcript here. And here is The Star's report at the time on January 11, 2012.

'An agreed statement of facts'. That's what MacIntyre admits he said.

Here at DJ! we've written about Jabba's strange family, including the sad-case sister who attracts violent drug users, before.

And we've written about Jabba's own possible substance abuse.

Last night on Twitter some semi-professional do-gooders were wringing hands and tut-tutting at those of us who were demanding WHAT THE FUCK NOW? 'Not kosher to go after his family', we were told. 'Substance abuse is complicated', we were admonished.

This has gone waaaay beyond one over-fed dumb-ass bully with a troubled family and maybe addiction problems of his own.

Toronto's Chief Magistrate surrounds himself with criminals, criminal activities, and violence.

There is a reason that politicians and wielders of power and influence (used to) eschew criminals and criminal activities.

Because criminals like nothing better than to have a pol in their pocket.

We need to know: what does Rob Ford owe? To whom? And for what?

Who owns Rob Ford? Or rents him on a regular basis?

We need an investigation. Or several.

Smoking Crack with DRUG DEALERS

OK, so Ford Nation is apparently standing by their asshat guy.

Mostly they're in denial that the video exists.

On Twitter today Ezra LeRant aired a different theory.

It's not just class. It's race. Rob Ford is the 1st black mayor. At least brown. Ask any cabbie or corner store owner maisonneuve.org/post/2013/05/2…

— Ezra Levant (@ezralevant) May 28, 2013

Leaving aside the incredible racism of that, I decided to take the challenge (and I needed cigarettes).

My local convenience store is owned by a bunch of brown guys. Not related as far as I can tell. Some, judging by accent, born here or got here really early, some born elsewhere. I think Pakistan, that part of the world, but I've never asked.

Sometimes, there's a woman in a head-scarf hanging around. She never serves customers and for quite a while seemed to disapprove of me. She's warmed up a little and occasionally smiles at me now.

So, brown Muslim people.

I have a good relationship with the two main guys. One in particular really likes me. I have no idea why but he always gives me a big smile and a free lighter.

My fave guy was behind the counter today. I decided not to ask him if he thought Rob Ford was black, lest he think me nuts and cut off my free lighters.

But I did ask him what he thought about Ford smoking crack.

At first he shrugged, clearly not wanting to answer. But I figure all those lighters put me in a special category so I pushed and he said something interesting.

'In this country, everybody does that.'

Me: 'What? No. Not everybody smokes crack. I don't know anyone who has smoked crack.'

Him: 'Well, maybe not crack, but something. Marijuana. . .'

Me: 'OK, yes, lots of people do or have tried soft drugs. But not a lot do hard drugs like cocaine or crack.'

He shrugged again, trying to dodge. I pushed some more.

Me: 'What do you think of him doing drugs with drug dealers?'

Him: 'OK. That's bad.'

Of course I have no idea how representative his view is, but think about it.

You come from a very conservative society. And land in Toronto, which at the moment has the 'least photogenic human being in the history of the species' as mayor.

This mayor not only looks weird, he does weird shit, but then, in your view, most of your new neighbours do weird shit.

Maybe they all do weird shit like smoke crack. Even the mayor.

This doesn't bear thinking about, so when a pushy customer asks you about it, you try to dodge the question.

In talking to our neighbours about this, maybe we should lean more heavily on the questionable/criminal company Ford keeps.

And, of course, when the video comes out -- and it will -- lean very heavily on the comment FatFuck made about 'f---ing minorities'.

By the way, I still got a lighter even after I was pushy.

Image that inspired 'least photogenic human being' comment.




Hm, image is too small. Go to the source to get the full effect. Also, a pretty good article.

Our Long Municipal Nightmare Continues

The latest RobFuckingFordFiasco is still developing, so maybe I should hold off.

But what the hell? Lookit that picture!

After a bunfest last night sponsored by Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee (whatever that is), Sarah Thomson, former mayoral candidate and no fave here at DJ!, posted that photo to her Facebook page with some allegations.

Former mayoral candidate Sarah Thomson says she wants an apology from Mayor Rob Ford for allegedly touching her inappropriately and making a suggestive remark to her at a party on Thursday night.

“He told me he was in Florida and I should have been with him because his wife wasn’t there,” Thomson told the Star on Friday. “I didn’t expect that. Rob doesn’t normally act that way towards women, so I was a little bit shocked and then we posed to get our picture taken and he grabbed my ass during the pose.”

Starting last night and ramping up as I type, all kinds of claims of lies and set-ups and drunkenness and substance abuse are flying around.

Ford's defenders are very LOUD. They're saying Thomson's story changed, she was drinking, Ford was NOT drinking (lookit that picture again), Thomson's out to get Ford etfuckingcetera.

She's being criticized for taking it to Facebook, for not being more discrete, again etfuckingcetera.

In short, she's being trashed.

However this turns out, on International Women's Day, we have yet another example of two seemingly eternal features of the patriarchy.

1. However a woman handles a sexual assault, it's the wrong way.

2. Women lie and can't be believed over men. No matter the circumstances.

Here's Neville Park's tidy summation.

She's well-connected, moneyed, with every privilege; he's widely disliked, history of lying—what chance do any of *us* have? #TOpoli #IWD
— Neville Park (@neville_park) March 8, 2013

Happy International Women's Day. Ford's timing is, as always, impeccable.

Bonus: Right now, Thomson and Daniel Dale of the Star are doing a live online interview. I assume it will remain available at that link when it's over. If not, I'll come back and update.

Added by deBeauxOs - Since Rob Fucking Ford's credibility is at issue, just thought I'd stick this in here, too.

Mayor Rob Ford has angered teachers and parents at the Etobicoke high school where he coaches football — and prompted an investigation by the Catholic school board — with comments the teachers say depicted the school in a “demeaning way that was filled with untruths.”

Read the whole story.


UPDATE (12:45 p.m.) Team Ford is going with Total Mystified Denial. Not She Misinterpreted. Not I Apologize Not That I Did Anything Wrong.

And not only denial. He calls her a liar. As in this gob-smacking sentence.

What is more surprising is that a woman who has aspired to be a civic leader would cry wolf on a day where we should be celebrating women across the globe.

I believe that wolf will come back to bite him on his MASSIVE ass.

Part-Time Mayor Stupid

Mayor Stupid ducked out on an executive committee meeting to coach highschool football, prompting Adam Vaughan to roll out the 'part-time mayor' meme again.

“The executive committee is the mayor’s committee and he has responsibilities to it,” he said Tuesday. “He’s not being paid to coach football, he’s not being paid to do anything other than being mayor by taxpayers.”

. . .

“People who come to address committee expect to have an audience with the mayor,” Mr. Vaughan pointed out.

Mr. Ford dismissed accusations that he is not doing his job. “I work harder than any mayor ever has,” he said. He added that citizens who missed him at Monday’s meeting can always give him a call.

“I return all my phone calls,” he said. “Everyone has my number. Anyone who wants to call me I’d be more than happy to talk to them.”

Two years before the next election, Mr. Vaughan speculated that Mr. Ford is using his role as a football coach to raise his profile.

“I guess he sees that coaching football gives him a big publicity boost,” he said. “Being a folk hero is not his job. Being the mayor is and if he is not showing up for work he is not respecting taxpayers.”

Seriously. He thinks his job is to return phone calls.

On the other hand, as evidenced by his testimony at the conflict of interest thingy -- the best account of which is Edward Keenan's -- who knows what he thinks his job is?

Ford Nation responds to all criticism with: He won a majority, so STFU.

All Torontonians will remember the 2010 municipal election as having, IMO, the worst roster of mayoral candidates evah.

That said, Mayor Stupid did win. But strictly speaking, he did not win a majority.

Here are the numbers.

Ford: 47.1%
Smitherman: 35.6%
Pantelone: 11.7%

There were about 814,000 votes cast, or 53% of eligible voters.

I just did the math. Mayor Stupid actually had the support of about 25% of eligible voters.

That makes me feel better.

I am going to make it my personal Mission from Gawd to help get the other 47% of Torontonians off their butts next time.

But please Gawd, give us at least one credible -- ah hell, I'll settle for half-decent -- candidate.


Image source.

Charge Him!

Several tight-lipped -- not to say mealy-mouthed -- reports of an 'incident' between Rob Fucking Ford and a TTC streetcar driver.

A TTC operator was counselled about his behaviour after an incident with Mayor Rob Ford on Wednesday.

The driver got up from the  seat of the TTC vehicle he was driving to speak with the mayor,  which he should not have done, according to TTC spokesman Brad Ross.

“The operator was counseled, i.e. spoken to, about leaving his seat, which is not permitted,” Mr. Ross wrote in an e-mailed statement Thursday night. “The matter is now closed.”

The operator was driving a streetcar at the time of the incident, according to a report in the Toronto Star. Mr. Ross told the newspaper that drivers aren't allowed to leave their seats "to have a discussion of any kind with a motorist."

He declined to comment on what the driver said to Mr. Ford. The incident didn’t cause the operator to miss any time at work, according to the newspaper.

Mr. Ford did not immediately return a phone call requesting comment on the incident.

So, what the hell happened? Don Peat has the answer.

Transit union prez Bob Kinnear says Mayor Rob Ford passed open doors of a streetcar sparking run-in with Mayor Rob Ford #TOpoli

— Don Peat (@reporterdonpeat) June 29, 2012

Gee, isn't blowing by open streetcar doors highly illegal? Yep.

And incurs a big fucking fine? Yep.

As a regular streetcar sacrificial lamb rider, I am incensed. Everybody who rides streetcars has seen near misses, pulled people about to step off into the path of an oncoming car back, kicked and spat at these scumbag scofflaws.

Thank gord, I've never seen a hit (not gonna call it an 'accident'), but I betcha several TTC drivers have. Like one I had once. The same motherfucking driver blew past open doors TWICE. First time, TTC guy yelled, blew horn. Second time, same reaction. (To cheers from passengers, BTW.) Next intersection, streetcar caught up to asshole stopped at a light. The driver got out, knocked on car window, and when asshole opened it, he screamed at him.

Asshole flipped the bird and blasted off.

To more cheers from passengers, the shaking TTC guy got back in his seat.

I'm betting he *had* seen the outcome of squishy human meeting speeding steel penis substitute.

It's no secret that I despise Rob Fucking Ford. Hysterical overreactions to comedians in his driveway and reporters near his house, public drunkenness, scoffing at driving and cellphone use laws, let alone his attempted destruction of a city I love.

Now I've had it. Well and truly had it.

Charge Rob Fucking Ford.

I have just begun.


UPDATE: From Don Peat.

MORE HOLY FUCKING HELL: From the update, Rob Fucking Ford called the TTC to complain about the TTC guy???????

The union boss said it’s not the first time Ford has complained about one of his members to TTC management.

UPDATER: The Star.

MORE: The Storified version from SolChrom.