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

What's Missing from The Star's Latest on Ford's Felonious Friends?

The first sentence from The Star's latest story on Rob Fucking Ford and his criminal associates:

Toronto police are investigating attempts by associates of Mayor Rob Ford to retrieve the crack cocaine video.

Notice anything missing there?

No?

Compare to this poll being run by NewsTalk 1010 at the moment, which, by the way is running 84% 'yes'.

The Toronto Star reports that police are looking into Rob Ford's buddies' attempts to get their hands on an alleged video of the mayor smoking from a crack pipe. Do you believe the footage exists?

The Star has abandoned the use of the word 'alleged'.

The crack cocaine video.

No one, not The Star, not the cops, not a significant majority of NewsTalk's audience doubts.

Most significantly, The Star's lawyers do not doubt its existence.

I might blog on the story itself, with its plethora of sketchy characters, most of whom live in their parents' basements while driving pricey cars, later.

But for now, I just wanted to point this omission out.

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.