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Rob Ford: Still smoking crack. On video. Taking leave of absence.
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Speaking of Kathy Ford, her former common-law spouse was in court today. Details coming out that after he vowed to expose the Ford family, he was savagely beaten in court for "being a bother to the mayor"
http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/politics/archives/2013/11/20131107-211311.html
Interesting
http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/politics/archives/2013/11/20131107-211311.html
Interesting
Rumour has it that he has sold his story to the Fifth Estate which airs tomorrow night
NotTheGuyYouKill
Member
Ford's new staffer:
I think she looks thrilled to be there
I'm so sorry, girl. Good luck.
AlphaTwo00
Member
It's the twerk tape.
Zombie James
Banned
What's the word on the wiretap release?
dragonfart28
Banned
I think that's up in the air depending on the ruling tomorrow? No idea
Star says they have some big thing planned for saturday so...
Ford's new staffer:
I think she looks thrilled to be there
"I've made a huge mistake"
Judgment is tomorrow. Then they have to determine what to release and then prepare it.
I'd say Monday or Tuesday, if the judgment is in the media's favour.
BigJonsson
Member
Spine_Ripper
Member
I shoulda remembered that.
ReturnOfTheRAT
Member
I forgot about that until I read your post. I can't handle this right now.
:O
Wait, it is?! My birthday is on Monday then!
AlphaTwo00
Member
More on Jon Stewart tonight?
Dr.Guru of Peru
played the long game
The number is 69%, which is incidentally nearly identical (71%) to the number of residents in Santa Clara county (San Jose) that work in Santa Clara. You don't get a much better comparison than that.
I live in Hamilton these days, and the opposite is true too - a ton of coworkers come in from the GTA, one from even as far as Markham. And I'd say that culturally Hamilton and Toronto (and K-W, and Barrie, etc.) are virtually identical. The architecture, the politics, the popular restaurants and stores, the immigrant demographics are all the same. Hamilton is just poorer and more run down, but the nice areas of Hamilton are identical to the the nice areas of Toronto and so on.
Providence RI and Boston MA (or Baltimore MD and Washinton DC) are actually distinct culturally, yet they're still considered to be part of the same metro area in the states.
And not really re: Buffalo. The border is a big barrier. Buffalo hasn't gotten any economic benefit from its proximity to the GTA, while Hamilton, K-W, and Barrie clearly have.
Everyone was getting their digs in tonight, even the guest
crimzonflame
Member
Remember Vince Carter?
No. Why, did he win any trophies of note?
crimzonflame
Member
Slam Dunk Champion. Most popular NBA player 2000-2003.
One of those is unimportant and the other doesn't actually exist. And both are totally subjective.
crimzonflame
Member
I was being facetious.
Well I was straight up lying when I said I didn't know Vince Carter.
Prax
Member
Somehow being implicated in this mess and also getting arrested. >_>
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
Nothing really, but the substance of the push to remove Ford is not and should not be grounded in policy disagreements so IMHO replacing him with an exact policy clone would still be a massive, massive improvement.
So which is worse: a buffoon like Rob who is successful at derailing a progressive agenda or a 'competent' like Doug who would be successful at forcing through an actual conservative agenda?
From what I understand despite being run by a drunk, murderous, crack user Toronto is actually doing well under his policies. If that is true then it just makes this story even funnier.
From what you understand?
Beyond trash collection, it isn't. Revenue and transit was gutted for no reason beyond ideological bluster with the budget ballooning from Miller's.
Going off the Daily Show his approval rating went up after admitting crack. Dunno how true that is.
Well it makes the decision kicking him to the curb much easier. The nice clean curb.
About a year into his tenure city council stopped listening to him after his brother Doug met in the backroom with developers and proudly trumpeted a plan to sell them prime waterfront land to build (I am not kidding) a ferris wheel and a monorail. It was so damn stupid that he lost control over Councillors and they started going around him on almost every issue. The only victory he's had in the last two years or so is tearing up a contract (at the cost of 25 million I believe) for a cheap and cost effective LRT line and replacing it with what will be a underused and expensive subway. This is after he tried to junk an entire plan to build Light Rail across the city. He almost succeeded but the entire plan (minus the one line that will be turned into a subway) was resurrected and the only difference was a year of construction time gone and 65 million lost in contractual obligations.
Meanwhile congestion continues to choke the city and a raised highway that's one of the two major east-west arteries into the city is starting to fall apart with no long term plan to fix it. Ladies and Gentlemen, that's our mayor.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
I reject the premise of the question because I don't view the relationship between elections and policy outcomes quite so instrumentally. I also typically dislike complete gridlock in government, although some people like it if it serves their aims to prevent changes that would likely occur in its absence. I am not confident that Doug Ford would make a good mayor, but I am confident that he would make a better mayor than Rob Ford. Obviously he's not who I would vote for were I a resident of Toronto, which I am not
That being said I am open to a broader discussion about whether Mayor in specific ought to have a larger or smaller role as distinct from Ford's performance of being mayor, and in general I've become pretty sour on large metropolitan amalgamations over the last 5 or 6 years because of many, many cases where I feel they've negatively impacted the downtown core's political clout (and I'm... not a very suburban guy.)
But to put this in a more important context: when people make removing Rob Ford about the policies they disagree with, they provide a framing that incentivizes Ford supporters to burrow in in order to defend the policies they agree with. That's a distraction from the broader problem. The people who voted for Rob Ford aren't going anywhere, but they can and should be encouraged to cut him loose instead of engaging in rationalizations like "Hey, why do I care if he drunkenly throws things at staffers or cavorts with organized criminals? Subways!"
AlphaTwo00
Member
Here's the problem with the outside view: Toronto, depending on who you ask, is doing decent, or is dysfunctional right now.
City council has been split on a lot of things, and it just becomes a very partisan view of ford + allies vs everyone else. Long time Councillors have always voiced that they basically ignore him (and in recent week, even more vocal about it). The amount of back and forth, reneging on past decisions, and practically flipping the table on transit because he can't stand "sharing the street with streetcars", resulting in a costlier solution for transit that serves less people, comes in at a later date, should be the #1 reason why his "gravy train" slogan isn't true: it's just one form of gravy to the next.
(Oh don't get me started about the entire statement about his ability to reduce office expense: Just because he's spending his own money for office resources just so that he can claim that he's costing taxpayers $0, that's not a realistic and legitimate reason of stopping "the gravy train")
Edit: Oh, remember how he spent half a year trying to land an NFL team, because that's what world class cities have?
The most absurd part right now, is that people are willing to disassociate his personal behaviour because of his accomplishments. The problem is that really on paper, his actual accomplishments are paper thin, but the series of gaffes and insensitivity towards city issues are just absolutely staggering. Mel Lastman's only real major global slip-up was the "caught in a pot of boiling water with natives dancing around me", and you know what, while the "subway to nowhere" still goes nowhere, at least it got built; this is literally bullshit mountain - talking points, and nothing more.
Honestly, Rob Ford's cancellation of the car registration tax that puts $60 back into every car driving person's wallet is the greatest political bribe that allowed him to coast this far without actual work done yet still allow him to spew his rhetorics without being called out on.
How? Plus as others have noted it's very possible that Doug Ford is a major cause of all this.
robertsan21
Member
Rob ford:
Drug addict.
Crazy person.
Friends with drug dealers?
Might even have been involved in trafficking drugs etc into and out of the city ? or at least made it easier for his drug dealer friends to do what they wanted in Toronto right?
this is a mess.
Drug addict.
Crazy person.
Friends with drug dealers?
Might even have been involved in trafficking drugs etc into and out of the city ? or at least made it easier for his drug dealer friends to do what they wanted in Toronto right?
this is a mess.
50-60 lbs in a a week or 2? He'll have to do some massive crack binge for that to happen.
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