Posts Tagged ‘ paul ainslie ’

Ainslie quits, Ford blameless and innocent

Posted on October 12th, 2013 Comments Off on Ainslie quits, Ford blameless and innocent

The sieve that is Rob Ford’s administration continues to leak the vital fluids of the municipal body of City Hall consisting of staff and fellow councillors. Yes, the analogy is as lousy as Ford’s retention rate.

I’ve lost count as to how many people have decided to stand up against Ford’s petty tyranny, but this time around it’s councillor Paul Ainslie jumping ship from Ford’s executive committee, saying that the blubbery one bullied him and other councillors into making ass-backwards, idiotic decisions based on fantasy, bluster, and lies (a.k.a. Ford “logic”).

The back-breaking final straw came with Ford’s bull-headed insistence on subways for Scarborough, now enacted and thereby sealing the fate of that whole part of the city for decades.

“I think it’s irresponsible of me to go to taxpayers and say ‘here’s a basically free LRT being given to you’ or ‘you can spend a billion plus dollars on a subway that’s going to take 10 or 20 years to build,’” he said. “I don’t think there’s enough planning from the mayor’s office on how to ease gridlock in this city, or public transportation, or just getting people to work.”

Complete lack of planning, entirely made-up facts and arguments, lies, name-calling, law breaking, denigration and attacks and finger-pointing: all in a typical day for Rob Ford and his brother.

Ensuring that his ignorance was on full display, Robbie followed up the vote by saying that downtowners have enough subways and there’s just no reason why anything needs to be done to accommodate an influx of extra commuters (you know, with these new subway lines that he pushed through), into an already at-capacity system.

But Rob Ford, being justifiably emboldened, decided to take it one step further, once again breaching a bunch of laws in the process (he’s already been openly and illegally campaigning for over a year), and following his buddy Stephen Harper’s cue in placing automated calls (a.k.a. robocalls) to Scarborough residents specifically to rat out Ainslie as the only person to vote against subways (and for LRTs).

Of course, the bloated one didn’t bother to mention how he personally voted to increase Scarberians’ property taxes to pay for his bullheaded project, after years of screaming about the evils of any new tax hikes, etc. etc. — directly contrary to his campaign promise, and everything he’s claimed up until very recently. Ford is so dishonest that he managed to flip flop four times on a single motion — actually voting against himself!

This comes shortly on the heels of more political hypocrisy (laced with heaping dollops of ignorance), from the Fords as they rejected a Toronto memorial for Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

Asked about why he supported honouring late NDP leader Jack Layton with a statue on the waterfront, Ford said, “Mr. Layton did a tremendous amount for the city. Pierre Trudeau did not.”

That’s the hypocrisy part…

Contrary to Ford’s assertion, Councillor Peter Milczyn, who seconded the motion, said Trudeau made a significant contribution to Toronto with the creation of Harbourfront Corp. in 1972, which “started opening up the water’s edge.”

“He is one of the great prime ministers the country had; the father of our Constitution and Charter of Rights,” Milczyn said. “He is a person that a lot of people look up to and admire. So I think it’s reasonable that in Canada’s biggest city we would have some kind of commemoration of him.”

He was not surprised that the Ford brothers reject the idea.

“If people want to be hyperpartisan here, they can answer for it,” he said.

For his part, Doug Ford chided Milczyn as he passed him on press row, joking that “he would name his ward after Trudeau if he could.”

…and that’s the ignorance part; what a surprise — the Ford brothers, having been in politics since before they were born don’t have the first clue about history, major political figures, etc. That’s not just me saying that … Rob Ford confirmed repeatedly and publicly that he has no idea how to do his job and doesn’t want to know how to do his job (or he’s very selective in his knowledge).

Claiming that Milczyn is hot for Trudeau is yet another great example of the bigoted, ignorant, hateful pot calling the kettle …  well, you know.

But Ford Nation is easily distracted by shiny things like jangly keys or the ever-present rivulets of sweat pouring off Ford’s brow, so none of what would otherwise be devastating scandals stick. None of his lies register. The fact that he does the exact opposite of what he says doesn’t seem to make a difference. His “plans” don’t warrant so much as a second look; that would mean that they got a first look to begin with.

I’ve even read chilling newspaper commentary in which Fordites openly state that they don’t care who Ford rapes or kills as long as it saved them a few bucks (or something to that effect — I’m hoping to find the exact quote). They don’t care that he’s connected to drug and gun smuggling, murder, extortion, etc.,  because he put $0.16 a day in their pockets (actually, he’s taking $0.08 out of their pockets but … you know …  math is hard).

It’s gotten so ridiculously delusional that brother Doug, now having run through his blame roster (the lefties, the media, anyone who doesn’t suck their weewees, etc.), and is turning his attention to the cops, not-so-subtly suggesting that they’re leaking information to the Toronto Star in increasingly paranoid and desperate rants, responses to the almost daily deluge of news that he and Rob are deeply connected to major criminality.

Yeah, Dougie, the whole world is out to get you and your angelic, virginal, pure brother. You’re both outstanding vestiges of honesty and virtue…

“When I’m out at an event … I’ve never seen Rob drink.  At family functions, I’ve never seen Rob drink,” [Doug Ford] says. – Newstalk 1010

***

“Rob and I are average guys, we go down to a festival, we have a couple of beers,” said Doug Ford, who added there were police officers in the area who saw them. – Huffington Post

***

In May the Toronto Star reported allegations that Ford showed up drunk at an official function. At the time Ford dismissed the report as nothing but “lies” and his brother added he’s never seen the mayor drink at any event.

In 2006, before Ford was mayor, he admitted he had too much to drink and verbally abused a couple at a Toronto Maple Leafs game after initially denying the incident.

In 2010, Ford recounted an incident from the 90’s where he was charged with driving under the influence and marijuana possession. Ford at first denied the allegations, but later pleaded no-contest to the impaired driving charge and the drug charge was dropped. – Huffington Post

***

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has become the latest Canadian politician to admit he’s tried marijuana.

“Oh, yeah. I’ve smoked a lot of it,” he told reporters Wednesday, according to the Toronto Star. – Huffington Post

Filed under: Dispatches, Patrick Bay, Sounds

Jaye Robinson: the mayor is a pussy

Posted on June 11th, 2013 2 Comments

The title of this post takes some liberties with Councillor Jaye Robinson’s comments on being fired from Rob Ford’s Executive Committee, but it’s not far off the mark:

“…it’s unfortunate that the mayor didn’t have the fortitude to tell me to my face that I’ve been removed from executive. I’ve been given no reasons. This is not a mid-term shuffle, this is not a normal time to shift and make adjustments to your cabinet.”

Convicted criminal and known public liar Ford responded with his typical “everything’s fine!”-style comment while taking the opportunity to imply that Robinson is the one lying, this despite the fact that this is the 19th person to abandon Ford Nation. That is, if you don’t include the now-demoted Paul Ainslie, the vitriol the Fords hurl at Karen Stintz, or the ignominiously fired Gary Webster.

Ford’s Club for Sycophants, now that Robinson is gone, is now a proper old boys’ club:

Executive

Filed under: Dispatches, Patrick Bay

Ford to liars: “take me to court”

Posted on March 27th, 2013 2 Comments

In response to the (somewhat) explosive allegations yesterday that Rob Ford is almost perpetually publicly plastered, the mayor responded by inviting his accusers to take him to court:

“It’s just lies after lies and lies, and I’ve called you guys pathological liars, and you are, so why don’t you take me to court? Let the courts decide. You guys are liars!”

I’m pretty sure Rob doesn’t read TCL, but I know his handlers do so this little tidbit of advice might find its way into his ear: when someone’s slandering or libeling you, it’s you who take them to court, not the other way around.

Also, it’s worthwhile to keep in mind that although the Star revealed the information, of you’re going to be suing anyone it should be the well-named and very public people who are sourced in the newspaper’s claims.

Filed under: Dispatches, Patrick Bay

Toronto’s Hottest Councillor

Posted on May 13th, 2010 27 Comments

It’s been years since anything like this was attempted and, let’s be honest, this is a survey that all of Toronto has been waiting far too long for. I understand that you, dear reader, may not know the first thing about most, if not all, of these people and that’s perfectly okay. I might suggest that not knowing some of these folks’ backgrounds may make them sexier. The idea here is to be entirely superficial. :)

I think it’ll be fun to leave the poll open until the fall election when all of these faces may change. Perhaps we can correlate the sexiness factor with incumbency.

In the meantime, pick the three sexiest guys and gals (feel free to vote as much as the system will allow), and I’ll try my best to deliver the good news to the winning two offices — one lady, one gent — when the numbers are all in. “Hottest Toronto Councillor 2010” — that’d look nice on a plaque.

… Continue Reading

Filed under: B Sides, Pictures