Rob Ford's Toronto

[Peepers]

I just can't believe that the Police did nothing when he was drinking and driving during their surveillance, after all the evidence given by his staff.

Both the Police and the Staff have some major explaining to do.

It's amazing how much an addict can manipulate and control others to try to get what they need.

I agree with this. The Toronto Star is reporting that the Police backed off Ford queries to "preserve" Project Traveller

http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2...tml?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

In the days after the crack video story broke in mid-May, Toronto police’s top brass made a decision — there were to be no more interviews about suggestions that Mayor Rob Ford smoked crack cocaine or the possibility that the video was on Anthony Smith’s phone and stolen during his murder.

That was, until Project Traveller was completed.

By then, the expensive year-long gang-and-gun probe was in its most crucial phase of surveillance and command was concerned that probing links to the mayor and the video could compromise the recovery of firearms and drugs, as well as the police’s ability to make arrests, according to new information from a 500-page search warrant document ordered released Wednesday.

The call was made by Superintendant Jim Ramer on May 19. The day before, Ramer had asked top homicide detective Gary Giroux to interview Ford staffers Mark Towhey and David Price about a tip that came into the mayor’s office.

Some observations:

Gary Giroux the so-called "top" homicide detective was brought in to interview Towhey and Price about a tip that came into the mayor's office.

The tipster suggested a link between the video and the murder of Anthony Smith. It made perfect sense to bring in a homicide detective to investigate something potentially connected to a murder. This myth perpetuated by the Toronto Police that Giroux was brought into the investigation because he is "so good" and nothing to do with homicide is nonsense.

So what we have is Toronto Police putting a MURDER investigation on the back burner so as to "preserve" an investigation into guns and drugs! On what basis can Bill Blair justify this? Where are their priorities? Why would the investigation into a murder hinder a separate investigation into drugs and guns?

After today I think that Ford is finished. It's only a question of how long he can hang on. I hope that that media will now devote some attention to the investigation by Toronto Police. It seems to me that Bill Blair has a lot of explaining to do!

 

[Bennett000]

I've heard theories that Ford's strategy is to wait until everything is out there, then play the rehab card. That way he can come back, say he has done what everyone wanted, nothing more comes out and people move on. Not saying that would work though, you have to think he is done now.

I don't think all of the information that's going to come out can come out fast enough for this strategy to work. Also even if Ford is successfully rehabilitated (a big if), I would wager that exposure to politics, and the campaign would be too much pressure, and he would relapse.

 

[MetroMan]

Other than being pig-headed, why are the Ford's so desperate to hold on to power? The NP article referred to Ford being worried about someone higher up being mad at his mess, maybe there is more going on than just a fucked up mayor.

I've been pondering this. The following is just speculation:

1. Crack video story breaks
2. Ford runs from media for a week
3. Fancy cars driving around Dixon show off suitcases full of money
4. Ford confidently denies crack video exists
5. Ford will not step down under any circumstance

Most people assume Ford just bought the video himself and had it destroyed. But wait... what if it was not Ford who bought the video? What if those suitcases full of money convinced Mohamed Siad to give up the video? What if the person offering those suitcases full of money then strongly encouraged Ford to not step down? What if that person had some things he needed Ford to do for him? Would the video surfacing change any of that if there were now threats involved? There's some pretty powerful people in the city and this is all starting to fit into a neatly finished puzzle.

 

[Honest Ed has a posse]

This has to be one of the worst interviews I've ever seen. Doug doesn't answers questions, he just talks about what a great job Rob is doing and the interviewers just let him avoid answering. What the hell was the point of that? Doug controlled the whole interview from top to bottom. What pathetic interviewers they were.

Man oh man was that a perfect illustration of how out of their depth and oblivious the Fords are about this shit tsunami.

Doug has no clue. He's on CNN, national news in the US, who are viewing this as shocked and amused outsiders and he's using the same crappy soapbox rhetoric that HE thinks plays to Gladys Q Etobicoke. The reporters at CNN and their viewers have no context to put his bullshit in so it just comes across as a ridiculous goof speaking in mumbling gibberish. Why on earth did he think going on CNN would help the Ford cause?

That really said a lot to me about how much power they think they have. It's delusional, Hitler in the bunker delusional, with Dougie as Martin Bormann. In their insulated bubble of the Ford mafia they really believe they can say or do anything and win.

 

[Sweet Mister]

That's a very believable narrative, MM.

 

[juniorfox]

I've been pondering this. The following is just speculation:

1. Crack video story breaks
2. Ford runs from media for a week
3. Fancy cars driving around Dixon show off suitcases full of money
4. Ford confidently denies crack video exists
5. Ford will not step down under any circumstance

Most people assume Ford just bought the video himself and had it destroyed. But wait... what if it was not Ford who bought the video? What if those suitcases full of money convinced Mohamed Siad to give up the video? What if the person offering those suitcases full of money then strongly encouraged Ford to not step down? What if that person had some things he needed Ford to do for him? Would the video surfacing change any of that if there were now threats involved? There's some pretty powerful people in the city and this is all starting to fit into a neatly finished puzzle.

Couldn't higher up just mean god or something for him?

Also since the videos the police recovered were reconstituted from deleted videos on a hard drive, isn't it possible that Ford did buy and destroy the original video after being assured any copies had been deleted and just had remarkably too much faith in the computer wizardry of the Dixon City Bloods?

 

[Adjei]

This is just ridiculious. After this clown is out of town, we need to bring some sort impeachment motion for politicians in Ontario so this kind bullshit where one fool can hold an entire city hostage with his antics.

 

[basic]

So what we have is Toronto Police putting a MURDER investigation on the back burner so as to "preserve" an investigation into guns and drugs! On what basis can Bill Blair justify this? Where are their priorities? Why would the investigation into a murder hinder a separate investigation into drugs and guns?

The only hope, and I think it is still a slightly less than remote possibility, is that the Ford-Smith murder investigation is still ongoing and ends up with the Mayor in handcuffs. It's the only way the Police come out of of this without major stains.

 

[themarc]

So what we have is Toronto Police putting a MURDER investigation on the back burner so as to "preserve" an investigation into guns and drugs! On what basis can Bill Blair justify this? Where are their priorities? Why would the investigation into a murder hinder a separate investigation into drugs and guns?

Because Project Traveler probably prevented several other murders, shootings and other crimes from being committed. Not only was it a year long investigation - but they were watching everyone anyways.

It's clear that Doug Ford began taking runs at Chief Blair because if he could get the Chief replaced with one of "his guys" that Project Traveler would be shelved and all this info would just go "poof"...

 

[OSS 117]

I usually avoid reading the Sun, so I'm not familiar with Mike Strobel's writing. Are his articles normally this...weird? His writing is so disjointed that it's hard to read.
http://www.torontosun.com/2013/11/13/sex-allegations-against-mayor-rob-ford-ramp-up-the-scandal

That's the Sun style, that one sentence-per-paragraph thing. Warmington does it too. Sun readers don't like a lot of words.

 

[juniorfox]

That's the Sun style, that one sentence-per-paragraph thing. Warmington does it too. Sun readers don't like a lot of words.

At least in the news section they go with full sentences. Simmons writes three word sentence fragments with a million ellipses. It's horrible (not least because Simmons is the worst writer on the planet, bar none).

 

[OSS 117]

Seems like very reputable source.

It's just the first link I happened across, but the info in there is accurate. The whole thing is sort of a scam.

 

[PhnomPencil]

I hope so. A truly despicable character trying to present himself as honest. I despised his commentary on the day of the big reveal, on 1010.

Am I the only one here who wouldn't have gagged for a week after being offered a job as staffer for Ford? I mean, yeah, there would be projectile vomiting for 48 hours, and maybe again for 12 after a 12 hour break... ad infinitum... but imagine the job interviews... "Yes, I can work in crisis management. After all, I was at Ground Zero in the greatest political scandal of our generation." I've always thought that way about his staff.

Also, does anyone else find the thread traffic here a bit off? On the day Vice exposed the Hacker Emails showing the clear connection of the murderer's driver sending the video's login and password to "The Big Guy", 95% of the posts here were about the "Yes, I smoked crack" sentence. Then on the day council makes a puppet motion -- they didn't even strip his office of funds (and btw I think Doug's strategy then would be for Deco to cover it) -- many favour that non-event of photo opportunities over the ITO release, which has generated less than a half dozen pages of commentary.

I'm tellin you, brothas, in ten minutes --- do i need 15 minutes, brotha? do I need 5 minutes? No ten minutes brotha -- this ITO blows everything else out of the water. Before, Wynne had to worry about the type of populists that vote for Layton-Ford-Trudeau. The Ontario Conservatives would have been able to gain some votes against her if she had taken action, through at the very least some snide remarks like Heinz Fischer's "Oh he wasn't that bad" tactics in Austria, if you catch my drift... now, if she takes action, she'll look like a HERO... Ford's character has become such an embarrassment to the Tories that they wouldn't dare bring it up in the next election.

This is how it ends, the province is about to step in.

 

[basic]

There's some pretty powerful people in the city and this is all starting to fit into a neatly finished puzzle.

But the mayor himself admitted to smoking crack cocaine, it takes the leverage from whoever may have bought the video.

 

[typezed]

Man oh man was that a perfect illustration of how out of their depth and oblivious the Fords are about this shit tsunami.

In their insulated bubble of the Ford mafia they really believe they can say or do anything and win.

An American public relations guy appearing on CBC tonight speculated that Ford is gaining favor among some in the American public as the story becomes told there. The expert said that Ford is winning the public relations battle. His act as the guy who refuses to back down to the system, fighting to save money for taxpayers will appeal to the same class of people in the US as here. All those who believe in the Tea Party and Sarah Palin. Impossible to fathom for those of us who watch and bounce between anger, incredulity, shock and sadness, but the man has always had some strange appeal for those who need simple solutions, and that's not going away.