Rob Ford's Toronto

[typezed]

It's a tiny picture where the face is completely in dark shadow. And you're convinced they look like brothers because they have the same last name. It's quite nuts.

 

[W. K. Lis]

With Rob & Doug Ford (maybe) keeping their newstalk 1010 show going Sunday afternoon, I can imagine this almost happening:

Rob: Now we have Gary on the line. What's your question, Gary?

Gary: Hello, how are you?

Rob: Fine, go ahead.

Gary: I'm Detective Sergeant Gary Giroux. You haven't come in yet for your interview with us. So instead I'll just ask you now. Where were you on the night of...

Doug: Sorry, we have to go to commercial. Thanks.


​

Commercial break for UrbanToronto.ca.
​

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Ranked ballots will help to reengage voters. Pluralities will be a thing of the past and more voters will feel as if their vote was meaningful.

I also feel that we need to redesign our civics courses in schools. Have them focus on teaching the students how to determine what is true/false in politics rather than the very specific details about our political institutions work. The civics course should also be taken in Grade 12 rather than in Grade 9. There aren't very many 14 year old that can appreciate the importance of responsible voting.

 

[tiffer24]

It seems like the brakes are finally failing on this runaway train. Rob seems as desperate as he's ever been, calling the cops ever 12 hours to complain about SUN/Star reporters. This really does feel like the end...

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

He's potentially involved in extortion. He's almost certainly guilty of DUI dozens of times. There's a start for you.

I'd think obstruction of justice is on the list too. All the media are hanging on the chief saying that based on everything SO FAR there are no charges facing the mayor but I find it unlikely they see the charges against Lisi as the endgame. Given all the phone activity etc. I don't think you have to be Sherlock Holmes to piece together that Ford asked Lisi to get the video. (And anyone who expected possession charges or whatever t come out of the video itself was off-base. That was never going to happen.)

So, I don't think you need a wild imagination or watch a lot of Law and Order to think the cops are telling Lisi that they know he's some small-time guy and he didn't come up with it on his own and does he really want to go to jail to protect the REAL bad guy here? If Lisi assaulted people (or hired people to assault people) on Ford's orders....that's bad for Rob.

(I think it's also reasonable to infer that Ford held his famous press conference, a week after the video news, when he thought they'd secured it and the problem was solved.)

I'm not sure how to reconcile the reports of the video being seen by lawyers weeks ago with the idea the cops just found it 2 days ago...but I take some solace in the idea that they have it either way.

Right now I'm curious:
a) About this second tape...whether it's a sex tape or a drug tape or whatever. Some people out there seem to have a good idea...
b) How they're going to do a radio show when Rob can't talk about things before the court. 1010 is clearly happy to take the high ratings but allowing him to spend 2 hours on radio, lying and taking screened calls strikes me as highly immoral. But what do I know...?

 

[Johnny Au]

I am in favour of proportional representation and ranked ballots.

It is much harder to manipulate either of them, as compared with the current first-past-the-post system, as well as allowing underrepresented voices to be heard. It would also prevent a candidate from winning with as little as 15% of the total votes.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Yesterday, when he was apparently working:

Well those things do taste good

 

[Johnny Au]

Yesterday, when he was apparently working:

Well those things do taste good

I never knew he likes those knuckle sandwiches.

 

[RC8]

The true face of Toronto's right-wing political establishment has come to light. They are willing to support someone who does business with drug dealers and murderers, who recommends thugs to teach football at a high school, and who has serious substance abuse problems. They are willing to support someone who the Toronto Board of Trade are saying is an embarrassment to the city, someone who is so poisonous to their own agenda. They are willing to support someone who doesn't go to work and instead gets drunk in city ravines and crack houses with his drug-dealing buddies.

They knew this was the case for months, we all did, and now they are tempted to jump ship but will only do so if Ford really loses all political viability. These are the people who want to fire a person for sleeping on the job based on an unmarked photograph and won't hear any 'excuses'.

These people have no values, no morals... they want to cling on to power for the sake of power, even if they cannot even advance the most basic of their 'fiscally conservative' objectives.

I don't care that these guys are conservative - that's the least of my worries - these guys are morally corrupt beyond belief. Please Tory, Stintz, Ainslie, Soknacki, rebuild a front that can actually contribute to a constructive democracy. Then we can respectfully disagree on some issues, like the good old times...

 

[adma]

This has been my concern as well. Regardless what one thinks of Rob Ford's character, he is a deeply flawed and helpless human being who needs to take a break and get better, not only for his own but especially his immediate family's sake. How he's lasted this far carrying on with the same reckless abandon without dropping dead is astonishing in itself. How can a man lack so much humility that it poses such a dire threat to his own physical and mental health?

Actually, re the "barely even walks", Ford has long struck me as someone with a real spring in his step--a natural gift (though of opposite body type to him, I have it too) that probably fueled him well in the high-school football world, not to mention the door-to-door campaigning world. And it can still be sensed through his bloated, pink-faced, diminished state today.

Let's remember, too: he reserves his ire for streetcars and bicyclists. *Not* pedestrians. (Unless it's city authorities closing roads on behalf of pedestrians--to say nothing of runners--of course.)

 

[PinkLucy]

Yesterday, when he was apparently working:

Hey, give the guy a break. He had a meeting today, on a Saturday no less. Dude works harder than anyone.

 

[Johnny Au]

I wonder if Rob Ford works hard or is hardly working.

 

[darmstrongd]

Bill Blair's father was named John. Bill has 3 siblings so it wouldn't be a stretch for a son to be named after the father.

 

[Rufus8]

Does anyone think if some black guy at Jane and Finch was involved in this sort of stuff the police would "request" an interview?
Why no breaking down the doors of white drug dealers/users? Lisi is out on bail with his devoted parents, while the alleged victims of extortion are still behind bars, and FYI they are NOT white.
And how many apologists does it take to sustain an abuser in high office? We whine about children being bullied but when a politician does it it's okay. Double standards all round.

 

[adma]

And the EXECUTIVE ENDORSES HIM FOR REELECTION?!?!?!!?? The mind reels. What planet are these people on? His mayoralty is turning into a fiasco basically without precedent in Canadian democracy. I know the remaining members of the executive are his true believers, but I am astounded even they would be willing to dive back down the rabbit hole.

Maybe it's more complicated than "true believers". Maybe they know. But they're putting on a best-face salvage scenario knowing that with this particular individual it's likely to fail, but...what else could they do? They're trying to be diplomatic rather than say "get out, and don't come back".

And "what else could they do?" seems to have been the quiet Ford-exec story all along, all these years.