Kinja reply list

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lobstrJohn Cook
5/16/13 8:42pm
John — two questions...

1. TMZ has stated repeatedly that they "have very deep pockets" , presumably for shit like this if the subject were a veritable above-C-list celebrity; do you think they'd be the ones to take one for the team, or to them do Canadian politicians carry lower celeb weight than, say, Brittney Spears' sister?

2. They gonna cut you in on the sale if you found a buyer? A weekend in the YYZ ain't cheap!
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  raincoasterlobstr
  5/16/13 9:15pm
  TMZ isn't interested in foreign politicians unless they have or will do Lindsay Lohan.
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  lobstrraincoaster
  5/16/13 9:30pm
  Well, let's not count the guy out, after all, he does hang out with crack dealers...
  
  ao!
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RussianistJohn Cook
5/17/13 8:00am
Clip from the Toronto Star article:

[Ford lawyer Dennis] Morris told the Star that by viewing any video it is impossible to tell what a person is doing. “How can you indicate what the person is actually doing or smoking?” Morris said.

For those curious about Dennis Morris, here's a photo:

"It's so funny you think my client was smoking something illegal in that crack pipe. Am I the only one who thinks so?"
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  secretagentmanRussianist
  5/17/13 8:17am
  'I'm not being defensive. Maybe you're the one that's being defensive. Maybe you should look at yourself once in awhile.'
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  gramercypoliceRussianist
  5/17/13 8:55am
  You think the SNL pic is a joke, but it's not at all far from the truth. This is from yesterday's Toronto Star, seriously:
  
  Minutes after Mayor Rob Ford arrived at a contentious community council meeting in Etobicoke on Tuesday evening, he bolted out of his seat, sprinted up an aisle, and left the building — to wander around the parking lot and slap “Rob Ford Mayor” fridge magnets on the doors of cars.
  
  When a reporter told Ford that some people might find his behaviour strange, he retorted that some people find the reporter strange. Magnets in hand, he made no further comment.
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BingleyJoeJohn Cook
5/17/13 12:21pm

GIF

For those of you not familiar with our bumbling shit-pile of a mayor and his remarkable ability to disgrace our fair city, here is a rundown of some of the stupid bullshit he has inflicted on us (in addition to simply being a crack-head, obviously):

1. May 2013: Ford sprints out of a meeting of the Etobicoke York Community Council to slap “Rob Ford Mayor” fridge magnets on cars in the parking lot. He is investigated by city bylaw officers after a resident complains.

2. April 2013: Saying “we need more females in politics,” Ford invites women to call him if they would like him to “explain how politics works” over coffee.

3. April 2013: Ford walks face-first into a camera while attempting to evade reporters at City Hall. Grabbing his eye, he says, “Ah f—- man. Holy Christ. Holy — guys, have some respect. You just hit me in the face with a camera.” The incident is mocked by U.S. late-night host Jimmy Kimmel.

4. March 2013: The Star’s Robyn Doolittle and Kevin Donovan report that staff members have tried to get Ford to seek help for alcohol abuse, and that Ford was asked to leave a military gala in February because organizers were concerned he was intoxicated. Ford does not address the specifics of the story, but he calls Star reporters “pathological liars” and the article an “outright lie.”

5. March 2013: Former mayoral candidate Sarah Thomson accuses Ford of sexually assaulting her by grabbing her buttocks at a party held by a Jewish political organization. Ford denies the allegation; on his weekly radio show, he questions whether Thomson is “playing with a full deck.”

6. March 2013: Ford tells Sun News that players on the high school football team he coaches at Don Bosco Catholic Secondary “just wouldn’t go to school” and would have “no reason to go to school” if not for football. “You can’t tell them to get an education,” he says. The comments anger the school’s teachers and prompt an investigation by the Catholic school board, which says Ford’s statements contain “a number of inaccuracies.”

7. February 2013: The Star reveals that Ford is still asking registered lobbyists for donations to the Rob Ford Football Foundation — even though he had narrowly avoided losing his office after a legal saga that began with his decision to solicit such donations. His chief of staff says the new letters were sent in “error.”

8. February 2013: A forensic audit of Ford’s campaign financial practices concludes that he overspent the legal limit and that he committed dozens of other “apparent contraventions” of elections law. An expert committee later votes 2-1 against prosecuting him.

9. November 2012: A judge ousts Ford from office for violating conflict of interest law by casting a vote at council to excuse himself from repaying $3,150 to lobbyists and a company from which he had accepted donations for his foundation. He is granted a stay that allows him to keep his job pending his appeal, which he wins in January.

10. November 2012: Paying TTC passengers are told to get off a bus in the rain so it can pick up Ford’s football team after an away game and drive them back to Don Bosco. After the police request the bus, Ford calls the TTC’s chief executive officer on his cellphone, then calls him again when the bus does not arrive immediately.

11. October 2012: Under fire from the city’s integrity commissioner (for disparaging the chief medical officer) and ombudsman (for meddling in the civic appointments process), Ford says their jobs should be eliminated; the city should have a single accountability officer, he says, not three.

12. September 2012: City officials acknowledge that Ford personally asked senior civil servants to approve a road and drainage project on the land beside the headquarters of his family’s business, Deco Labels and Tags, in time for the company’s 50th anniversary party.

13. September 2012: It is revealed that Ford’s taxpayer-paid junior aides help coach high school football practices and help organize his summer football program. They sometimes use a city vehicle to travel to practices and games, an apparent violation of government rules.

14. September 2012: Ford leaves a meeting of his own executive committee more than five hours early to coach his football team in a pre-season scrimmage “jamboree.”

15. July 2012: In response to a shooting at a Scarborough block party that killed two people and injured 23, Ford calls for gun criminals to be exiled. “I want these people out of the city. And I’m not going to stop. Not put ’em in jail, then come back and you can live in the city. No,” he says. In response, the federal immigration minister notes that the proposal “obviously” violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

16. June 2012: A TTC driver confronts Ford after the mayor drives past the back door of a streetcar from which passengers were disembarking up front. Ford did not act illegally, the police say, but a staff sergeant advises the public that is “probably most prudent and safe” to stop before the back door.

17. June 2012: Ford falls off an industrial scale and twists his ankle on the last day of a six-month public diet campaign, the Cut the Waist Challenge, in which he lost 17 pounds, 33 short of his stated goal. He had announced on his radio show in May that he had given up on the challenge three weeks early: “I’m not even dieting anymore. It’s gone! It’s water under the bridge.”

18. May 2012: Ford charges at me with a raised fist in a park behind his Etobicoke house, demands that I surrender my phone, and calls the police to accuse me of trespassing. I had been researching Ford’s unusual application to purchase public land, which was later rejected. The police find “no evidence” to charge me.

19. February 2012: Ford’s signature transit proposal is defeated by council after he fails to produce a funding plan. After the meeting, he says, “Technically speaking, that whole meeting was irrelevant.”

20. February 2012: Ford and his brother, Councillor Doug Ford, are criticized by the integrity commissioner in separate reports released on the same day.

21. January 2012: Ford calls centrist and progressive councillors “two steps left of Joe Stalin.”

22. December 2011: Police are called to Ford’s house early on Christmas morning. Ford’s mother-in-law called 911 between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. to report that Ford had been drinking and was taking his children to Florida against the wishes of his wife, Renata. Police were also called to the home about a domestic situation in October.

23. October 2011: Ford calls 911 on This Hour Has 22 Minutes actor Mary Walsh, who ambushed him in his driveway dressed as her character Marg Delahunty, “princess warrior.”

24. July 2011: As he does every year, Ford votes against each of six widely popular grants programs that provide city money to community organizations. He loses 43-1 in votes on the first four programs, 42-2 on the fifth, and 41-3 on the sixth.

25. July 2011: Ignoring a personal plea from Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke, whose late son was gay, Ford skips the Pride parade to spend time with his family at their cottage. He also skips every other event at the 10-day festival.

26. February 2011: Ford’s internal itinerary reveals that he held a city hall meeting with an impresario who was successfully sued for driving away with more than $500,000 in others’ money after the 2003 post-SARS benefit concert. Subsequent itineraries released by his office omit the names of his meeting partners.

27. December 2010: Ford invites outspoken hockey commentator Don Cherry to deliver an inaugural speech at the first council meeting of his mayoralty. Cherry blasts “left-wing pinkos” and “left-wing kooks.”

28. August 2010: The Toronto Sun confronts Ford about an arrest in Florida in 1999 for marijuana possession. Ford adamantly denies the charge: “I’m dead serious. When I say no, I mean never. No question, Now I’m getting offended. No means no.” He later acknowledges that he had “one joint in my back pocket.” The next day, he says his memory had been fuzzy because he had been charged with “failing to give a breath sample” that same night. But even that is not true: he was actually charged with driving under the influence, to which he pleaded no contest.

29: August 2010: During a mayoral debate, Ford questions the value of immigration: “We can’t even deal with the 2.5 million people in this city. I think it’s more important that we take care of the people now before we start bringing in more.”

30: August 2010: Ford tells the Sun’s editorial board that a council decision to grant a no-bid contract to a restaurant “stinks to high heaven.” He also says that private sessions of council involve “more corruption and skullduggery going on in there than I’ve ever seen in my life.” The owner of the restaurant sues him for defamation, but Ford wins the case.

31: August 2010: Ford says he has the “same thoughts” as a Wendell Brereton, a pastor and city council candidate who believes same-sex marriage can “dismantle” democratic civilization and who says on his website that his “kind of Toronto doesn’t parade immorality and call it pride.” Upon receiving the pastor’s endorsement, Ford says he too supports “traditional marriage.”

32: July 2010: The Star reports that Ford was told to stop coaching football at a North York high school after a 2001 confrontation with a player that some witnesses said was strictly verbal and some said involved Ford making aggressive physical contact with the player. Ford vehemently denies the allegation of physical contact, and he stops speaking to Star reporters or sending them news releases.

33. June 2010: In a secretly taped phone conversation, Ford appears to entertain a request from an HIV-positive man to help him illegally purchase OxyContin. “I’ll try, buddy,” he says. “Leave this with me ... I have no idea. I don’t know any drug dealers at all ... I’ll bet my life I won’t be able to help you out,” Ford says.

34. March 2008: Ford, then a city councillor, is charged with assaulting his wife and uttering a death threat. The charges are later dropped because of alleged inconsistencies in his wife’s story.

35. March 2008: During a debate about whether to allow stores to open on holidays, Ford says, “Go to the Orient, go to Hong Kong ... You want to see workaholics? Those Oriental people work like dogs ... they sleep beside their machines. The Oriental people, they're slowly taking over ... they’re hard, hard workers.”

36. March 2007: Ford says: “Roads are built for buses, cars, and trucks, not for people on bikes. And, you know, my heart bleeds for them when I hear someone gets killed, but it’s their own fault at the end of the day.”

37. June 2006: During a debate on HIV/AIDS prevention spending, Ford says, according to a National Post transcript, “Why are we catering to one group with a disease that's preventable? It's very preventable. If you're not doing needles and you're not gay, you won't get AIDS probably. And I don't know why we're spending $1.5-million on this.”

38. April 2006: Ford berates a couple at a Maple Leafs game with such comments as “Do you want your little wife to go over to Iran and get raped and shot?” When the couple complains, Ford denies even being at the game — though he had given them his business card. He eventually concedes and apologizes, saying he had been “pretty well acting like an idiot.”

39. July 2005: Ford calls Councillor Gloria Lindsay Luby, a fellow Etobicoke conservative, a “waste of skin.”

40. June 2005: During the annual grants debate, Ford says, according to the Globe and Mail: “I don’t understand. Number one, I don’t understand a transgender. I don’t understand: is it a guy dressed up like a girl or a girl dressed up like a guy?”

41. March 2002: During a budget debate, Ford refers to Giorgio Mammoliti – a fellow councillor of Italian descent – as “Gino boy.” He denies making the remark.

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  SARburnsBingleyJoe
  5/17/13 12:30pm
  Don't forget the white supremacist concert he attended and subsequent picture he took with one of the band's singers.
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  BingleyJoeSARburns
  5/17/13 1:10pm
  Yeah, the amazing thing about that list is that it's not actually complete!
  
  There was also the time he was caught using his cellphone while driving (illegal in this province), and the time he was seen driving down the highway while reading (also illegal). That time, the smug fucker gave the teenage girl who witnessed it the finger. He's a real piece of shit, this guy.
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Cill BosbyJohn Cook
5/16/13 9:06pm
Anyone on Gawker want to pool money for this?
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  GirlonfoireCill Bosby
  5/16/13 9:20pm
  Yes!
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  Cill BosbyGirlonfoire
  5/16/13 9:23pm
  Start the campaign now.
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simon224John Cook
5/16/13 10:53pm
Complete bullshit. A fantasy. By the way, there is no lawyer named Dennis Morris licensed to practice law in Ontario. Source: Law Society of Upper Canada membership database (http://www.lsuc.on.ca)
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  gramercypolicesimon224
  5/16/13 11:53pm
  Really? Maybe you should read this instead of your dumb link: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/to…
  
  Toronto City Coun. Rob Ford says he will plead not guilty to criminal charges of assault and making a death threat. Ford, who was arrested and charged Wednesday, talked about the charges against him on Thursday morning on a Toronto radio station. Ford also added some detail about events at his home this week that resulted in the charges.
  
  Lawyer Dennis Morris told CBCNews.ca that his client was arrested in his Etobicoke home Wednesday morning after being accused of committing an assault earlier that day. Morris said Ford denies the assault took place and will plead not guilty.
  
  "Our position is that these offences never did occur," Morris said, noting that in cases of alleged spousal abuse, police are obliged to make an arrest.
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  happyfunballgramercypolice
  5/17/13 12:27am
  The "dumb link" is the bar association for the province.
  
  That said, it does list a Dennis Stephen Morris who practices as a lawyer in Toronto.
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RussianistJohn Cook
5/16/13 10:10pm
A reporter from the Toronto Star newspaper is saying they have seen the video:

robyndoolittle‏@robyndoolittle

Myself and Kevin Donovan have viewed the video of Mayor Rob Ford that is the subject of the Gawker piece. Read the Toronto Star tomorrow
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  MagisterRussianist
  5/16/13 10:29pm
  So, basically Gawker has the exclusive for at least a few more hours, then they'll get mentioned in the Canadian press for at least one more day, plus the recaps?
  
  "Today's gossip is tomorrow's news"
  
  BTW: Here's an embed of the tweet. Kinja let's us do that now. Good find.
  
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  Fleur-de-litRussianist
  5/17/13 12:21am
  They've already gone to press:
  
  http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall…
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TCCCCCCJohn Cook
5/16/13 8:53pm
If you crossed Chris Christy with George Bush and gave the resulting abomination a few hard smacks with a frying pan, you'd get Rob Ford.

In the U.S. at least we're able to keep anti-government wingnuts out of our city governments (convicted felons are much more our style); how one of Canada's largest and most important cities wound up electing someone so crazy and anti-urban is still a complete mystery to me. Was 2010 just a terrible year for the Canadian left like it was here in the U.S.? Were the other candidates just terrible campaigners (a la Martha Coakley)? Does Toronto's boundary cover a disproportionate share of conservative-leaning suburbs (compared to other cities)?
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  SLR999TCCCCCC
  5/16/13 9:21pm
  Toronto was amalgamated with its adjacent cities in 1997 to form a new, huge conglomeration. Old Toronto did not vote for him, and would never vote for him. The former suburbs did.
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  DissolveTCCCCCC
  5/16/13 9:22pm
  As a Canadian and former Torontonian, here's my take:
  Ford campaigned largely on the promise of eliminating the "gravy train" of funding that had occurred under the NDP (closest thing us Canucks have to a socialist party), and turning the city's budget from a deficit in to a surplus. Years prior to Ford or the guy who preceded him, many surrounding suburban areas that had encroached on the Toronto border were folded in to an area that's now called the "GTA", or Greater Toronto Area, essentially making them boroughs of Toronto rather than their own cities. Ford campaigned heavily in these outlying suburban areas, and it paid off for him big time.
  
  GIF
  
  The blue are the areas largely inhabited by downtown-core commuters, whereas the purple areas are the downtown core itself. Ford basically pandered to the suburban folks for votes, and even managed to follow through with a few key initiatives (the benefits of which are still being debated across the city), but Ford's been seldom more than a running joke since his election. So, your last guess is my best guess. This was not the first Toronto election where people took issue with the way the election and representation was run, nor will it be the last.
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Adrian ChenJohn Cook
5/16/13 9:53pm
Check out this March comment on Torontomike.com from "Rinse":

Here's the thing: Rob Ford DOES use crack cocaine. A friend of mine, her mother is a serious drug addict. Rob Ford regularly goes over to her house to smoke crack.

The problem is this: The daughter wants to expose Rob Ford's drug abuse, but her oldschool Italian grandmother won't allow her to "bring shame" upon the family, long story short.

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  goldwAdrian Chen
  5/16/13 10:16pm
  http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/…
  
  G
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GemmabetaJohn Cook
5/16/13 8:45pm
So you guys noticed our fucktard of a mayor too?

*Sigh*, 17 months to go until election day.
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  RussianistGemmabeta
  5/16/13 8:50pm
  I have a feeling he's gonna be out of office long before then.
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  sjabernethyRussianist
  5/16/13 9:35pm
  Tried and he beat the rap on appeal.
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RussianistJohn Cook
5/16/13 8:56pm
A lawyer threatening action from a Hotmail address. I had to Google this high-powered attorney to see what's what. Seem this class act gets regular work from the Ford family:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/to…
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  Alex a ChemistRussianist
  5/16/13 9:00pm
  You'd think he could at least upgrade to outlook.com
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  RussianistAlex a Chemist
  5/16/13 9:23pm
  Yeah, but it's clear this master of Ciceronian rhetoric can barely upgrade his spelling and grammar checker.
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