Olivia Chow appeals to her natural constituency - the obsessive moron vote

The campaign ad produced by Olivia Chow's team features a weird, obsessive woman who claims to have not received a return call from Toronto mayor Rob Ford after phoning him 20 times.

The woman in Chow's ad adds that she has Rob Ford on speed dial.

Why?

Because she had to wait for public transit.

I hope she has the number of a good psychiatrist on speed dial too.

Olivia Chow's laughable, pathetic campaign still hasn't been able to come up with a single credible reason to vote for her.

Chow's entire effort is devoted to running down Ford, who has accomplished more in one term as Mayor, like eliminating the Vehicle Registration Tax and privatizing half the city's garbage pick-up, than Olivia Chow has in her more than 20 useless years as a politician sucking off the public teat.

UPDATE: The ad backfires on Chow -This idiotic ad attracted so much derision and so many negative YouTube comments that the Chow campaign had to disable and remove user comments. Ha!

Jimmy Kimmel visits Ford Nation

Kimmel:  I'm saying I was so drunk, I don't know what happened"

Rob Ford: "I used that excuse one too many times myself"

Great Stuff!

Olivia Chow's awful debate performance makes it clear she's the candidate of Toronto's civic unions and not the taxpayers

In the days leading up to Olivia Chow declaring her candidacy for mayor, I'd had a few conversations in which I warned some of her supporters, "...you know, I bet 99% of the people who think Olivia Chow would be such a great candidate have never met her or heard her speak in public."

Now Chow also shows that when it comes to running a civic economy, she's completely in over her head. 

I'd say I hate to say "I told ya so," but I don't hate to say it at all...




The funniest part of this was that Chow's scripted "We're not on the gold course, I don't need to take any lessons from you" she threw at John Tory, which was supposed to be her big zinger, was delivered at such an inappropriate moment, it backfired on her and she was booed.

UPDATE: As will come as a surprise to no one, The Toronto Star has already gone into meltdown mode.  I'm willing to place bets right now that before the end of October, The Star tries to push for all candidates except Tory to drop from the race to try to prevent a Ford re-election.

A British food critic gets a taste of Toronto news media's appalling behavior

I've been to City Hall during press scrums and if anyone wants to know why (one of the reasons) I'm so contemptuous of The Toronto Star's semi-literate reporters and the organization in general as well as most local media, they should check one out for themselves. You can't get anything like a real taste of it from watching it on TV, because the "journalists" and TV coverage makes sure to hide the egregious behaviour of the media. But it's truly astounding. While there are a handful of people who act professionally and with dignity, like Sun Media's Brain Dunstan, it's incredible watching these "media professionals" behave like angry, hysterical, autistic children in public. And then they have the temerity to accuse Rob Ford of bad behavior after their relentless efforts to provoke him, the overwhelming measure of which he stoically ignores.

...After ordering the hot dogs — Ford declined, saying he was watching his weight — the phalanx of media descended “and it was crazy,” Coren said.

“It was over the top, seriously. I’m British and the British press is famous for acting aggressively to land a story, but I’m going to be honest and say the press (around Ford) behaved abominably and were very aggressive, and, in my opinion, crossed a line to get (Ford) to react.”

The rush back to Ford’s offices was “unreal,” said Coren. “Apart from being a bit sweaty, he acted like nothing had actually happened and took what had just happened in stride.”

Coren was later “taken to task by some journalists, who chewed me out because I hadn’t asked him about the crack. I’m a restaurant critic, for goodness sake.”

Olivia Chow wants to take back Toronto for the NDP

Sue-Ann Levy:

...[Olivia Chow] was forced to resign from the police services board for her lack of judgement.

The woman who purports to be a good role model for children also endorsed a move by OCAP in 2005 to urge the poor to flout welfare rules and seek a special $250-a-month diet benefit, to which most were not entitled.

Last Thursday, she claimed that as mayor she’d know how to make every penny count and has the “strength to say no to spending” that isn’t smart or responsible. .. 

..Tory MPP Doug Holyday, who served on city council with Chow, said she was part of a group who never saw a tax dollar they didn’t want to spend...

...According to media reports from back then, Layton and Chow — purported champions of the homeless and the poor — were living in an $800-month three-bedroom apartment in a heavily subsidized co-op, while making jointly $120,000 a year (one-third of which was tax-free).

The city would have given away land for free to build the co-op and about 30% of the units would have been offered to low-income people with subsidies.

While Layton and Chow were not in one of those units, it was only in the final few months before they moved out — largely due to public pressure — that Layton coughed up an extra $325 a month to try to bring their rent up closer to the true market value of their unit.

In her book, My Journey, Chow explained that they actually had two apartments in the same building. When they married in 1988, Chow moved into Layton’s two-bedroom, leaving her mom in the one-bedroom downstairs, she wrote.

She also said Layton paid $1,200 in monthly market rent for his 10th-floor apartment and that a “self-appointed lynch mob” sought to destroy their safe haven.

In September of 1998, then-municipal affairs minister Al Leach told an estimates committee, during questions on the Layton/Chow co-op affair, that the cost to operate each unit was $1,200 per month and anyone claiming $900 was market value still received a “subsidy from Ontario taxpayers"...

More HERE

The Shorter Coren on Chow: She's neither smart nor competent and she'll waste piles of tax dollars on her hateful special interest buddies

Can't say I disagree with one word of this:

)

More on Olivia Chow and her trustworthiness HERE

In my opinion, The Toronto Star is run by bullying pieces of shit

In his column in The National Post last month, Conrad Black described the attempt by The Toronto Star to intimidate him into speaking out against Rob Ford.

Thornhill MP Peter Kent received the same crude effort by The Star to intimidate him into denouncing Toronto mayor Rob Ford.

His response is an example of integrity and courage that other politicians would do well to emulate and is well beyond the moral grasp of the fatuous, self-absorbed, sanctimonious garbage running the show at One Yonge Street:



DEAR MR OVED,


WHENEVER A REPORTER FOR THE TORONTO STAR MIGHT WISH TO ASK FOR MY THOUGHTS ON AN ISSUE OF THE DAY, I STAND READY TO RESPOND.

HOWEVER, AND DESPITE YOUR "EXTENDED DEADLINE"' I WILL NOT ANSWER THE DEMANDS IN YOUR LETTER OF DECEMBER 16TH, 2013, WHICH I CONSIDER TO BE A CRUDELY CRAFTED, VEILED THREAT THAT I (AND OTHERS) ENDORSE AN EDITORIAL COLUMN WRITTEN BY TORSTAR CHAIR JOHN HONDERICH...OR FACE CONSEQUENCES IN YOUR EVENTUAL STORY.

YOUR LETTER IS A PRIME EXAMPLE OF WHAT MIGHT BEST BE DESCRIBED AS CRUSADE JOURNALISM; A NEWSPAPER'S ATTEMPT TO IMPOSE ITS EDITORIAL WILL FAR BEYOND THE BOUNDARIES OF ACCEPTABLE JOURNALISTIC PRACTICE.

MR HONDERICH IS CERTAINLY ENTITLED TO HIS OPINION.

I WILL NOT BE BULLIED INTO COMMENTING ON THAT OPINION.

YOUR MANNER OF NEWS-GATHERING IS, I BELIEVE, AN UNFORTUNATE EXAMPLE OF THE DECLINE OF A CRAFT I ONCE PROUDLY PRACTICED.

SINCERELY,

HON PETER KENT PC MP


h/t Dodo Can Spell

Christie Blatchford: Ice storm reawakens Toronto’s inner wimp

...during this week, there was an undeclared war among the three putative mayors for control of the helm (and to be seen as “the face” of the ice storm) and a raging debate about whether Mr. Ford should have formally declared a state of emergency in the city, and whether it would have made a whit of difference in how the blackout was handled.

Myself, I’m of the view that Mr. Ford won this battle and rather handily: He seemed clear-eyed, sober, un-cracked, in charge and in control throughout, while Mr. Kelly mostly stood about looking rugged in a ball jacket and Ms. Wynne mostly pronounced that her heart ached for all the victims. Ms. Wynne’s heart aches a great deal, it should be noted.

In any case, now that it’s all over but the whingeing (which will go on for years, trust me), Mr. Kelly is apparently thinking of calling in the army to help with the cleanup of all the damaged trees...

Kathleen Wynne had the authority to declare an emergency in Toronto (but didn't)

Yesterday, I received another email from Ward 21 Councillor "Fiasco" Joe Mihevc reiterating for the umpteenth time how "disappointed" he is that Rob Ford didn't declare a state of emergency in Toronto because of a power failure following the ice storm. Within 3 days, the number of residents affected went down to less than 2.5% of the city, but declaring an emergency was never about a real need to do so - it was about Rob Ford's dishonest Council enemies trying to emasculate him by transferring all his authority to Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly.

...Ford wasn’t the only person who could have declared a state of emergency in Toronto last week.

Premier Kathleen Wynne could have done it as well, without Ford’s consent.

Under Ontario’s Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act, either the mayor or the premier can declare a state of emergency.

Under Section 4: “The head of council (the mayor) of a municipality may declare that an emergency exists in the municipality or in any part thereof and may take such action and make such orders as he or she considers necessary ... ’’ But in the same law, under Section 7, the premier of Ontario, “may by order declare that an emergency exists throughout Ontario or in any part of Ontario” if “in the Premier’s opinion the urgency of the situation requires that an order be made immediately.” Since Toronto is clearly “any part of Ontario” Wynne could have declared a state of emergency, without Ford’s permission.

Given that Wynne didn’t do that, it’s likely, she agreed with experts on emergency preparedness who said Ford made the right call.

h/t Blazing Cat Fur 

Piranhas circle for kill as Rob Ford's enemies try to use the Toronto Ice Storm to complete their coup

The struggle to restore Toronto’s power may have paled compared to the power struggle behind the scenes.

On one hand, you had a mayor trying to be a mayor and on the other, you had the deputy mayor — with appointed executive powers — waiting to, perhaps, take control.

To do that, a state of emergency needed to be called.

But Mayor Rob Ford is the only one who can do that.

If such a declaration was made, Councillor Norm Kelly — the deputy mayor — would have taken charge.

In the wake of Ford’s crack cocaine scandal, city council determined that Kelly — not the mayor — should be the one to lead in the event of an emergency. As a result, council transferred that power from Ford to Kelly.

Lots of games being played.

Read the rest of Joe Warmington's column at The Toronto Sun 

h/t Tarek Fatah

A despicable Toronto Star publisher tries to intimidate civic leaders into joining its vendetta against Rob Ford

Conrad Black in the National Post:

...In another aspect of the Ford controversy, a number of people have angrily sent me copies of a letter that the disgraceful John Honderich — the chair of the board of Torstar Corporation (the Star’s owner) and a former Star publisher — assumedly approved for distribution to 70 prominent Torontonians, urging them to agitate for the mayor’s removal in mid-term, and taking them to task as moral outcasts of the community for not joining in the full Christmas revelry of the Star’s attempted putsch....

Analysis: Ford comes out the winner in the Dale/Star saga

Even if you're convinced you're in the right and that you will eventually win, lawsuits suck.

They're time consuming and stressful and very expensive.

So even though a number of legal authorities were fairly certain Rob Ford could have won the defamation suit launched by The Toronto Star's Daniel Dale, the apology, and subsequent clarification of the apology the day later was a smart move by Toronto's mayor. The suit, the costs of which were funded by The Star, was dropped by Dale and there were probably reasons other than the spirit of forgiveness involved.

In the first place, Ford never said Dale was a "pedophile". The only people accusing Ford of having implied that were Dale's media cronies. Ford was talking about his own feelings of concern when he was told by a neighbor that someone was taking pictures of his backyard (which Dale denies and Ford has now said was not what Dale was doing). Thus, aside from the obstacle of proving Ford had defamed him, it would have been difficult, if not impossible for Dale to establish any damages even in the event of a ruling in his favor. As Ford never said Dale was a pedophile and nothing Ford has said has led anyone to believe Daniel Dale is a pedophile, how could Dale establish that his reputation has been harmed?

As a tactical move, the Ford apology, which clarified that he retracted any negative interpretation of Dale that could be attached to the TV interview the mayor had with Conrad Black, changed the equation. Almost certainly crafted with assistance from lawyers, the apology placed Dale and The Star in a position where they would very likely have been hit with all of Ford's costs if the matter went to trial and a judgement were reached against them.

Moreover, as much as the law suit was seen, from the onset, as another example of The Star's obsessive agenda to go after Ford using any means they could think of, following his initial apology, the tides had turned a great deal.

Even people not necessarily sympathetic to Ford were viewing the continuation of the suit at that point as petty, vindictive, and a substantiation of a vendetta The Star has had against Ford for the last 3 years.

The Star has come off as the major loser in all this. When Dale stated that with his employer's support, he would continue to be the City Hall reporter while suing the mayor, it became obvious beyond any doubt that even the pretense of objectivity could no longer be maintained by The Toronto Star.

Now Ford can concentrate on his campaign for re-election, with issues working in his favor such as his opponents' wastefulness, their penchant for taxation, and their corrupt subservience to unions.

So for Ford, the lawsuit has gone away, whereas for The Toronto Star, the stigma of bias, pettiness and unprofessionalism will stick around for a very long time.

The Toronto Star and Daniel Dale's lawsuit against Rob Ford is too implausible to make good fiction

When I used to work in Hollywood for a production company that's films garnered a slew of major Oscar nominations, one of my jobs as a Creative Executive was to decide whether or not to recommend screenplays for production and to write notes on them.

With the news that The Toronto Star's City Hall reporter Daniel Dale is planning, with the enthusiastic support of his employer, to sue Toronto Mayor Rob Ford for libel in a lawsuit of dubious merit, an analogous thought occurred to me, particularly after reading this in The Torontoist:

Dale will continue covering municipal politics, he also explains. “With the full support of the Star, I will stay on the City Hall beat while pursuing this action… I can easily imagine the mayor and his brother attempting to turn the tables on the Star and calling for me to take a leave of absence…I will not let this affect my job. I will not be bullied off of my beat.

I thought of my reaction if I had received a screenplay in which part of the plot involved a City Hall reporter, for a newspaper with the largest circulation in a major city, suing a mayor for libel and continuing to cover the City Hall beat while pursuing the suit.

The ensuing conversation in that imaginary scenario would have gone something like this:

ME: The gags need to be punched up a bit, but on the whole it's a pretty good premise for a comedy. 

WRITER: Comedy? This is a serious political drama. 

ME: I love your sense of humor! It's great, we've got the John Goodman-type regular guy slob, and all the stuck-up elitists are out to get him, like King Ralph, but at City Hall. But seriously, we need some more gags with the reporter and the mayor encountering each other. Oh, and that flaky female reporter that made a name for herself by stalking the mayor, I think her motivation should be that she has this sexual fixation on him, like she's a chubby chaser or something. Here's a scene you might want to consider: maybe she could corner him in private and flash her beaver and demand he eat her out. She could say something like, "You look like you know how to eat a lot of pussy!" And he's squirming to get away and says,"I've got plenty to eat at home!" 

WRITER: You don't understand! I mean it, this is a serious political drama about an oppressed reporter seeking justice from an evil politician! 

ME: Seriously???

WRITER: Yes! My sympathies are completely with the newspaper and its reporters.* 

ME: Okay. You realize that changes everything. Here's why that's not going to work. First off, you've got who are the villains and who is the hero mixed up. You have this guy who was elected, and he's this silly doofus who tells ridiculous lies about his personal life, but when it comes to serving the public, is scrupulously honest. The guy even coaches underprivileged kids and takes them into his own home. And that's your villain. 

On the other side, you have a newspaper run by hypocritical snobs who support a corrupt government that misappropriated billions of dollars in public funds. And they lie about this mayor character, they hate him mainly because he's not part of their "in" crowd, they obsessively stalk and harass him, and support every undemocratic effort they can think of to get him out of office.  And those are supposed to be your heroes?? 

WRITER: But this terrible mayor has made the city a laughingstock!


ME: That's pretty harmless, and again, it's what makes this all more of a comedy.

WRITER: But the real drama comes when this detestable mayor slanders one of the hero reporters by implying he's a pedophile, potentially destroying his life!! 

ME: Yeah. Well, here's your problem with that. The way you describe it, in the first place, the Mayor never said he was a pedophile, he was talking more about his own state of mind when he heard that some guy was peeping in his back yard. In fact, this mayor character explicitly says he doesn't know if the reporter was taking pictures of his kids. He was talking about how a father feels when he hears someone might be invading his privacy and talking pictures of his young kids. That doesn't sound like slander to me and there's no threat to the reporter's reputation because quite reasonably, nobody takes seriously the possibility that the reporter could actually be a pedophile.


WRITER: No! Wait, you're wrong about something! I never had the reporter peeping in the back yard!


ME: Alright, then here's where you've got some more problems with your storyline. After a neighbor calls him, the mayor comes charging out to confront the reporter, who freaks out and runs away.


WRITER: That's right, the Mayor is a bully!


ME: Okay, so let's assume your reporter never peeps in the mayor's back yard. How does the mayor know he's there? Why would a neighbor call the mayor to tell him someone is walking around on public land? The only way your story makes sense is if, even if he wasn't taking pictures of it,  he was at least peeping in the mayor's back yard. I still think you should give some thought to the comedy angle. Maybe have the reporter be a bit like Jim Carrey's character in The Cable Guy...


WRITER: No! It's not a comedy and no, the reporter was never standing on cinder blocks and peeking in the mayor's back yard!!


ME: Well, it's your story.


WRITER: That's right! I think every decent, social justice-seeking person in the audience is going to identify with the crusading newspaper and its heroic journalists!


ME: Interesting. The way I read it, in your story, the only people you've got siding with your newspaper are pompous douchebags and sanctimonious nitwits. But aside from that, we get to the most blatant problem with your story...


WRITER: Which is?


ME: Well, while this reporter is suing the mayor, he still is doing City Hall coverage for the newspaper.


WRITER: Yes, so?


ME: So? So that's completely implausible. There's no way a real newspaper could ever allow that to happen. It would undermine any shred of credibility even as biased a newspaper that you've written about could even pretend to have. I mean, how could there even be a pretense of objectivity and fair journalism when you allow a guy who is suing the mayor to be writing City Hall coverage!? It's like committing seppuku as far as all credibility goes. There's no way an audience would believe that even a third-rate rag of a newspaper would do that.


WRITER: That's the way I've written the story and that's the way I'm keeping it. So when will I hear about whether we go into production?


ME: Don't call us, we'll call you. 

* Actually, this is the point where I would have thought I was dealing with a lunatic and would have edged the meeting to a quick conclusion.

Just in case you needed confirmation that Toronto Councillor Shelley Carroll is an idiot

One of the reasons that embattled Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's support is holding so firm, aside from his sincere efforts to curb wasteful municipal spending, is one of default. It's that his City Council opponents are blithering idiots who are salivating at the prospect at getting their grubby hands back inside your wallets. 

One such example is Shelley Carroll, a posturing, juvenile grandstander who is obviously exactly as bright as she presents.

According to The Toronto Sun:

Carroll suggested Ford was holding up that police probe by “hiding behind his lawyer” and refusing to meet with investigators.

“We are now at the point where I can’t think of any Torontonian who would have been able to put off answering questions for the police who have politely asked for this long,” Carroll said.   

Evidently Ms Carroll is unaware that unlike Stalin's Russia or Castro's Cuba, a state that has the affinity of the left wing of Toronto's City Council, Canadians cannot be legally compelled to speak to police.

They can be arrested if police believe they have sufficient grounds to lay charges (which they evidently do not in the case of Ford) , but even then they cannot be forced to answer police questions. We have this thing called a Constitution and a Charter of Rights, plus long-standing British legal traditions which deal with these matters.

It couldn't be that Ms Carroll was having some drug-induced hallucination where she thought we were all living in the sort of police state we would have if she and her ilk were ever placed in charge, could it?

The Rob Ford interview with Conrad Black

This is quite an interesting interview. Ford makes some good points in his favor. One of the interesting aspects that emerges is the sleazy stalking to which The Toronto Star's reporters, particularly Robyn Doolittle and Daniel Dale, have subjected him and his family.

A political Hit Job by the Toronto Police Services

The real revelation in the latest release of reports of investigations and wiretaps surrounding the Rob Ford controversy is that there is no revelation. At least not about Rob Ford.

The "shocker" is supposed to be that some people talked on the phone about Ford having done heroin and that people discussed his attempting to buy the "crack video" which was at the centre of the media firestorm.

But these are reports not of anything Ford actually said but what some people have said about him.

There are even some Toronto City Councillors suggesting that Ford should face criminal charges. If your Councillor is among them, the big concern you should have is that your municipal representative is a moron.

Ford should be charged with what, exactly?

If there is actual evidence of his attempting to pervert the course of justice, then absolutely he should face criminal charges. But if there is any such evidence, there has been no indication of it so far.

Furthermore, most of the released information about Ford has nothing to do with a criminal investigation. It seems to be in the report for the sole purpose of smearing and humiliating him. That aspect, which seems designed chiefly to benefit Ford's political enemies, is not, as far as I know, what police or judges are supposed to do as part of their paid duties.

To be clear, to the best of my knowledge, Ward 21 Councillor "Fiasco" Joe Mihevc has never had sexual relations with a farm animal. But the Ford-related transcripts are not dissimilar to what could occur in a hypothetical situation in which a recorded conversation was released in which Mihevc was alleged to have had sexual intercourse with a goat, and if then outraged activists railed "Why hasn't Mihevc been charged with cruelty to animals!?"

What would happen if police released a transcript of a recording in which someone said: "Yeah, Mihevc tied the goat to a post, then pulled his pants down. He lubed up his cock and then jammed it into that goat doggie-style. Or I guess it would be goat-style in this case. Mihevic was grunting and the goat was groaning. Or was it the other way round? Anyhow, he started screaming as he was cumming, 'you're the best goat I ever fucked!!' Then he untied it and walked it back to the organic goat milk farm. That poor goat looked traumatized."

Now, had such a conversation occurred among third parties and a transcript been released, would there be any legal grounds for charges against Mihevc? Of course not. It would have all been unproven allegations and baseless hearsay.

But the release of the conversations among third parties about Ford have been nothing more than a political hit job by a politicized police department for no other apparent reason than that it can be exploited by some sleazy municipal politicians, their allies and media stooges.

Among the issues raised was Ford having been allegedly blackmailed by some of the drug gangs in the suburbs. That would be a serious matter and the first question which should be raised is, did Rob Ford ask or in any way try to influence police to not investigate or enforce the law against those criminals?

Unless there's something I haven't heard, the answer to that question is a clear and resounding "no."

Moreover, Ford has been the more supportive of Police and their efforts to combat drug crime and gang violence than any other Toronto mayor in living history. Ford himself has devoted countless hours to volunteering to help youth in those at-risk neighborhoods, so he is well aware of the need for police to take a hard line on them.

If this sounds like some sort of bizarre contradiction, that Ford associating with some of them and using drugs belies that, the problem is that indeed Ford does have some personal failings which he has committed to remedy.

But this goes further to the point that Rob Ford's personal life and issues have no bearing on the job he was doing as mayor. He is still far more competent and professional in exercising his public duties than his City Hall opponents.

There are a lot of people whose lives may not look so good if continually put under a microscope the way that Rob Ford's has for the last three and a half years.  There is even a very, very senior Toronto Police official who has been described to me by reliable sources as having been "a major pot head."

To say nothing of other politicians and media figures.

The new transcripts with fewer redactions do have some interesting revelations. Among them that many of the allegations of which the media are making so much are actually contradicted in the document by other allegations.

It's quite interesting to note that the one person who claims to have seen Rob Ford "do lines at the Bier Markt" never saw it. If the report is accurate, then this server speculated that he saw Ford snorting cocaine and then went around boasting to both as many of his fellow employees he could find and The Toronto Star's Robyn Doolittle that he had eyewitnessed something which he admitted to police that he in fact hadn't.  Even more interesting is that this same server had been a volunteer for George Smitherman, whom Ford defeated in the mayoral race.

Speaking of The Star's Robyn Doolittle, she comes across in the report as an obsessive stalker of Ford, practically harassing people and turning up unannounced at their homes to pester them for information after being told by people they had nothing to say to her.

The Toronto Star's vendetta against Ford was made even more clear in a recent panel discussion that included Doolittle and Star editor Michael Cooke. Cooke described to the friendly audience that during the mayoral race, The Star had sent reporters to Chicago to investigate every facet of Ford's business to dig up dirt on them.  Disappointingly to him, he described the way Ford conducted his business as "squeaky clean."

Did The Star send cohorts of reporters to investigate "party drug addict" Smitherman's personal life? The Star's anointed candidate cost Ontario taxpayers billions through the waste of the EHealth and ORNGE debacles, but as long as he was toeing the line they liked, evidently that didn't matter. Smitherman's husband was recently found in what appeared to be a drug-induced stupor in a ditch after a massive police search, following his going missing for a day. And that is the same George Smitherman The Star wishes were running Toronto now.

This all points to why Ford's support remains solid. He is a man who, whatever personal problems he may have, confines them to his personal life, but in exercising his professional duties is meticulous. This is the opposite of a number of City Councillors who have clean personal lives but whose incompetence and corruption, along with their subservience to special interests, cost Toronto taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

  Rob Ford court documents: ITO With Pub Ban-edited by Crown-Dec 3 13

Am I really supposed to be outraged because Rob Ford talked about eating pussy?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Snortin' coke, smokin' pot, pounding vodka and hangin' with hookers - and he's still a better mayor than Olivia Chow would be

Now I'm really starting to admire Rob Ford - he's a party animal and still doing a fine job running a major city.

Click HERE to buy your Vote for Rob Ford t-shirt

The Rob Ford "death threat" video is obviously him joking about a celebrity boxing or wrestling match

Kathy Shaidle at Five Feet of Fury observed that Rob Ford sounded like he was doing a Hulk Hogan impersonation in the latest "scandal" released of the mayor after it was purchased by The Toronto Star for $5000.

That sounds pretty close. The video was made around the time of Ford's celebrity arm wrestling match with the famous pro wrestler.

In the video, you can clearly hear Toronto Mayor Rob Ford talk about being "in that ring" and when he talks about killing and only needing "15 minutes".

He also says if he wins, he'll "donate.." One of the other people in the room talks about how Ford's opponents "are pros."

Now under what circumstances other than a celebrity boxing match/fight does someone talk about donating???

It does sound a lot like it was in the spirit of his match with The Hulkster.

Ford admits being extremely inebriated when the video was made. But is it so terrible to get drink, in private, and joke around about what you'd do in a celebrity fight, and imitate the bluster of professional fighters?

This new "scandal" with which The Star is trying to outrage Toronto is no scandal.

But after they paid for this piece of nonsense it does firmly establish that The Toronto Star is a scandal rag with about as much credibility and integrity as The National Enquirer.

Separating the personal from the political with Rob Ford

A news leviathan that dominated today's headlines across Canada was confirmation, from Toronto's Police Chief Bill Blair, of the existence of the elusive Rob Ford "crack video."

It would be pointless to argue the authenticity of the video. Anything can be faked, but the apparent efforts of associates of Toronto's Mayor to procure the video suggests it was not a fabrication concocted by special effects experts.

That's the bad news for supporters of the embattled chief magistrate.

But for Torontonians who fear the demise of their only mayor to show demonstrable concern for fiscal accountability in over a generation, there is in fact a great deal of good news to counterbalance today's revelations.

Barring some new shocker, there will not be any charges against Ford, and quite reasonably so. A video with a man smoking a pipe with a puff of smoke coming out of it is not conclusive proof of any criminal wrongdoing.

Ford has said he's not resigning. And there's something that the ecstatic media buzzards that despise Ford have forgotten in their current euphoria; the next municipal election is a year away.

A year is an eternity in politics.

Ford has kept property taxes down to the rate of inflation, as he promised. He eliminated the Municipal Vehicle Registration Tax, as he promised. His influence has managed to get federal and provincial funding for subway expansion, as he promised. Ford has saved millions and improved garbage pick-up for half the city by privatizing that service, as he promised. Because the municipal unions knew he would play hardball, Ford was able to negotiate a fair contract with them, staving off any strike. That in stark contrast to his predecessor David Miller who forced the city to endure a prolonged, fetid garbage strike in the hottest months of the summer of 2009. At a point where the length of the strike would have forced union workers subsisting on strike pay to negotiate a deal more favorable to the city, Miller completely capitulated to the unions.

Miller is relevant to any current discussion about Ford. Because if one of  Ford's presumptive rivals gets into office, like the straw man candidate David Sonacki, Miller's Budget Chief, to whom all of Toronto outside of the offices of The Toronto Star remain indifferent at best, a return to the fiscal ineptitude and high taxes of the previous administration is virtually guaranteed.

The orgy of sanctimonious revelry at The Toronto Star over the disclosure of the existence of the Ford video will probably turn out to be short lived.

Ford lied about the video. But in terms of lying, The Star also lied about Ford, when during his mayoral campaign, the newspaper published false accounts of Ford having physically assaulted a high school football player he was coaching. Even after the alleged victim of Ford's non-existent assault denied it ever happened, The Star still did not print a formal retraction of their lie.

And we all know that the public is not as inclined as partisan media and partisan politicians to become histrionic about politicians lying about events in their personal lives. Indeed, a hysterical overreaction to personal foibles can backfire in a big way against the people trying to exploit it.

Newt Gingrich thought he had Bill Clinton on the ropes after the lies the former President told about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. But in the end, it wasn't the President, but Gingrich, who lost his job. The Speaker of the House role was taken away from Gingrich after the charge he led plummeted the GOP into a disastrous performance in midterm elections, when the public rejected their exaggerated hysteria about the Clinton affair.

Toronto's media mavens have been scrambling over each other to demand the crucifixion of Ford, whose indiscretions have cost taxpayers nothing. Yet strangely, most of them have remained complacent and silent about the billions of tax dollars wasted by the corruption Kathleen Wynne's provincial government.

The public are not as stupid and oblivious to that hypocrisy as the media might hope.

The milquetoast, mushy middle Councilor Josh Matlow and leftist Councilor Joe Mihevc both rushed today to exploit the news about the Ford video to their advantage. That is the same Mihevic whose incompetence and mismanagement of the St. Clair streetcar fiasco cost the city tens of millions only to see a neighbourhood divided, no discernible improvement in transit service and increased traffic congestion in his ward.

"It pains me to see the City of Toronto in the situation we currently face,"  Mihevic gloated about Ford. No more, I can assure you, than it pained me to see a $40 million project mushroom to over $120 million largely because of Mihevic's ineptness.

A year from now, when Torontonians go back to the polls to select their mayor, the Rob Ford video may or may not be on their minds. But so too will the high taxes, the incompetence, and the paternalistic arrogance of David Miller and his acolytes on City Council.  Knowing that horrible stewardship of the city, and union-bosses' and developers' domination of City Hall would return if one of Ford's potential rivals like Olivia Chow, David Sonacki or Karen Stintz should replace him will also be on the minds of voters.

Which weighs more heavily on Toronto's voters in the fall of 2014 remains to be seen. But I wouldn't count out Rob Ford yet. Not by a long shot.