You may remember a couple of months ago that Clayton Ruby, the lawyer who took Rob Ford to court on conflict of interest charges (and won), was planning to take the subsequent appeal (which allowed Ford to walk away on a technicality), to the Supreme Court.

Well, on Thursday he’s to learn if his appeal will be heard. He’s not optimistic, but others are more so.

The question Ruby is seeking to answer is a simple one: what’s the purpose of having things like conflict of interest laws when no public official can so much as be looked at funny when they break them? At least that’s the gist of it.

Of course the thing has to do with Rob Ford who has subsequently demonstrated exactly why the public needs to be able to throw out criminal politicians. And even if, perish the thought, you actually support Rob Ford, then at least it’s worthwhile to consider this for someone you don’t care for much — someone like Miller, maybe?

Most troubling about this, however, is the tiny fact that the Supreme Court only heard 12% of appeals last year (while typically hearing an average of 60%). This, it’s said, because the courts only choose cases of “public importance”, and I guess last year must not have been really very worthy, certainly nothing the public would care about.

Robbie’s having a rough day. Maybe it has something to do with that pesky crack tape that just won’t seem to go away. Maybe it’s because he just can’t make any friends.

“I don’t care if you’re 2 years old, 20 years old or 200 years old, you’re not going to live for free,” Ford said. Of TCHC chief executive Gene Jones, he said, “Obviously he has fixed the problem. Is it perfect? No.” Turning to a left-leaning critic, he yelled, “You! You’re the problem!”

Oh yes he did.

The fact is, this [proposed casino] is a huge opportunity for Toronto and for Ontario. The private sector is ready to invest $2-3 Billion or more in a Toronto project that will generate hundreds of millions of dollars on an ongoing basis for local and provincial government. For a project this size, Toronto should share equally in that revenue with the province. This would provide Toronto with up to $150 million in annual revenue.New property taxes and potential lease income would add to that.

Wasn’t he against more taxes?

*sigh*

The Toronto Sun recently asked what councillors, and anyone opposed to a Toronto casino, have against jobs?

That’s “10,000” casino jobs as promised by Rob and Doug Ford, the same jobs that Rob outwardly rejected because Kathleen Wynne wasn’t prepared to bend to his irrational and completely made-up demands:

“If the province won’t agree (to) that $100 million, then folks, the deal is dead. We are not going to carry on the casino debate.”

The Sun, of course, conveniently left that fact out and instead (just like their heroes Rob and Doug), pointed fingers at everything and everyone else. Had they included the most vocal and blusterous opponents of the casino — the Fords themselves — the following line would’ve taken on a whole different tone:

A really clever Toronto councillor would have cast aside their own prejudices for a moment and considered the wider public benefit.

It’s not fair to say that the Fords were solely against their pet project — the vote was 40 to 4 — so clearly other councillors were involved. And the numbers indicate that those councillors weren’t just the “lefties” that the ignorant Sun writers keep bashing.

In fact, at least one of those “lefty” councillors wanted to know how much Ford’s hare-brained casino idea was going to cost Toronto, something the Fords never bothered to question in their quest against “gravy” — just like the $3 million KPMG report Ford indiscriminately sole-sourced to simultaneously ignore the wishes of taxpayers in order to “save” money for the city.

In the end, councillor Mary Fragedakis got her answer: $370 thousand

The Sun (and others), were quick to distance Ford from this jaw-dropping waste, even though this was his and his brother’s baby from day one, and is yet another example of how Rob Ford is wasting millions of taxpayer money, not saving it.

The story was framed as “the casino debate that cost taxpayers $370,000”, even though the debate was just part of regular City Hall business. It was all the research that went into the casino idea that cost nearly half a million dollars, and that came at the direct behest of the Ford brothers. In other words, Rob and Doug Ford cost the city $370 grand.

This came at the same time that Ford attempted to explain his boasts of saving the city $1 billion dollars, which sounded like a fabrication while Ford refused to elaborate on it, and is now seemingly more so:

Councillor Gord Perks dismissed the mayor’s math.

“The mayor doesn’t seem to understand the difference between addition and subtraction or between addition and multiplication,” Perks told the Toronto Sun. “This is a completely bogus claim.”

Perks argued Ford was counting some things twice — like the cut to the car tax and then the cut to spending.

“They seem to have forgotten the millions of dollars they’ve spent in consultants, the millions of dollars they’ve spent paying staff to go away, the tens of millions of dollars in cancellation of Transit City,” he said.

“Over 10 years they’re adding $400 million in transportation projects — that actually costs money, it doesn’t save money.”

The vocal Ford critic stressed residents are paying more tax under Mayor Ford than under his predecessor.

“The basic thing is a Torontonian pays more tax today than when David Miller was mayor,” Perks said.

As an interesting and informative aside, the brain farts on Ford’s former (?) cheer leading squad, the Toronto Taxpayers Coalition, pegged the potential benefits of a casino at $400 million. These same pinheads, led by a loser with absolutely no experience in either government or finance and who couldn’t hack it in the tech field, are constantly propped up by the same media seeking to explain their ever-growing canopy of misinformation and bizarre justifications.

Now that this ongoing waste is out in the open and really nothing has changed, including Ford’s fantasy math, and both he and his brother are vowing to renew the debate (with Woodbine Casino), potentially wasting another half million, it’s looking like the brothers Ford are already gearing up for the next round of the finger pointing game.

It has become more or less a sick joke with the so-called “right” these days; marking occasions such as National Public Service week while simultaneously, and very publicly, destroying the very things they’re there celebrating; just like Ford’s speech at International Freedom of the Press Day, made shortly after he announced his open war against all the “maggot” media.

One might almost call it a perfect example of irony if it wasn’t so disgusting.

“I want to extend my appreciation to all federal public servants who serve with dedication, professionalism and commitment to the interests of Canadians,” Harper said in a statement issued Sunday.

This is, of course, anti-Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who is doing his damnedest to make Canada’s civil service into a glorified form of slavery, something he’s trying to do to the rest of Canada too because, after all, it’s the absolute highest ideal of the neo-Con business model / government. No, seriously, I defy anyone to name a business that wouldn’t want its workforce labouring for free and cowering in fear at the whims of the owner(s), and that’s what Ford, Harper, and the rest of their slimy cronies, have been pushing for loud and clear.

This is all being done under the manufactured banner of austerity which the politicians have made quite clear will only be saddled on the regular, average taxpayers while they themselves can be free to “misplace” billions of dollars of our increasingly hard-earned money. On top of this, it’s painfully obvious that the government is not in any way interested in making the civil service more effective and they sure aren’t interested in reducing any waste. Regardless of how much they lie in public, it doesn’t take much to put these facts together and to determine what their intent is.

Lost among the tumult of Rob Ford’s office staff leaving is a Globe piece about brother Doug that exposes more rot surrounding the Ford family tree at City Hall.

We learn that Doug is now the only member of a 13-person Build Toronto board after all of his colleagues quit for one reason or another.

Build Toronto is the group that’s supposed to be revitalizing the east-end waterfront; you know — the people behind the monorail, water hotel, and the Ferris wheel ideas. And just like his brother, Dougie is now trying to get his lapdogs into every vacant position on that board (it’s not hard to guess why):

The prospect of [Doug’s short-listed candidate] Mr. Kraljevic taking over at Build Toronto is a cause for concern among citizen groups who worked for years on plans for the Lower Don Lands only to have them threatened by Mr. Ford and Toronto Port Lands.

“How is this okay?” asked Cynthia Wilkey, chair of the West Don Lands Committee, a coalition of community groups that has worked for more than a decade on the waterfront development.

Ms. Wilkey said she was “gob-smacked” that the head of an agency that flouted the will of council is under consideration for a job managing a large city-owned real estate portfolio.

This must be the Fords’ definition of building a consensus.

Ontario Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian has found yet another government body breaking the law simply because they can:

“At the root of the problems uncovered over the course of our wide-reaching investigation was the practice of indiscriminate deletion of all emails sent and received by the former chief of staff to the minister of energy,” Cavoukian wrote.

That is in violation of the Archives and Recordkeeping Act (ARA).

Cavoukian said it is impossible for citizens to hold governments to account if potentially important documents are destroyed.

With the Rob Ford crack “tape” seemingly lost forever, people are starting to get antsy. “Where is it?”, they’re rightfully asking. “Without it, who knows if it’s even real!”

Not precisely correct, but still, it’d be good to have a gander at that video, wouldn’t it?

And about that not being correct part, consider this for a moment; many crimes didn’t have video cameras, or good enough video evidence, to prove that they ever took place. So does that mean that all you need to do is to take someone out into a back alley and it’s your word against theirs?

In a court, that wouldn’t be the end of it. There’s this stuff called corroborating evidence — not proof, but strong hints — and in the absence of any recorded evidence we have … eye witnesses.

People tend to forget about this type of sworn evidence: people who actually saw the event in question.

Now I already know what the Ford supporters are saying: “But these are unnamed sources claiming this! Plus they’re drug dealers! Plus they’re lefties!”

Unnamed?

Poppycock!

There are at least five publicly named sources at this point — the reporters themselves — who have claimed (on record, no less), that they saw the video with their own eyes. In court, they’d be witnesses.

Drug dealers?

I doubt it. But the people who claim to own the video, probably yes. Does that mean that those people (the witnesses and the drug dealers are not to be conflated), were able to use their ill-gotten drug money to make up a sensational video? If you believe that Santa comes down your chimney every year, you might buy this one too. Does that therefore make the video fake? Highly unlikely.

Finally, is there any other corroborating evidence to link Ford to drugs? You bet there is. And there’s motive in what the mayor is currently doing too.

Seems to me that with five public and named sources, the likelihood of the video existing being high, the likelihood of the video being fake being low, the fact that not only is the whole thing believable but also likely, and finally, that everything that the Fords have subsequently done points to a clear motive — it all sounds like a pretty solid case to me.

Ford’s defense: his flaccid word.

Seems like these days you hardly have time to turn around before another casualty of the Rob Ford administration comes out of the woodwork.

Just today another two staffers have been “escorted” out of City Hall. This time around it was Brian Johnston, Ford’s policy advisor, and Kia Nejatian, his executive assistant. That makes five people in total. So far.

Then comes the news that someone involved with the crack video (at least in terms of being in it), has been arrested in connection with the murder of Anthony Smith, the guy standing next to Ford in the same video (at least in the still that’s been floating around). In fact, they’re all hugging it up, making Ford’s presence smack dab in the middle of the group just that much more suspicious.

And the “non-existent” crack video, as Ford vehemently claims, seems all the more real every passing day as additional details surrounding his staff’s efforts to hunt it down have emerged. Seems Rob was personally involved in trying to get his hands on the video that doesn’t exist.

There’s also that pesky rumour that Robbie’s been busy behind the scenes destroying records — presumably of his misdeeds. Regardless, that’s just plain illegal.

If that wasn’t all bad enough, both friendly and not-so-friendly politicians are all taking a step back and saying they want nothing to do with the Fords.

And in the meantime, as a little gift to all of his taxpayers, he hasn’t even mentioned the one thing he vowed to be fighting: excessive spending at City Hall, specifically a computer project that has ballooned from around $8 million to $70 million on his watch.

This project sounds eerily familiar to the MFP computer scandal … that one resulted in the creation of the conflict of interest rules that Rob Ford was the first one to test and get away with on an egregious technicality — and then wanted the watchdogs responsible for preventing a repeat of that fiasco to be gotten rid of (among others asking too many questions for his liking).

Basically, the muddle of corruption, greed, and criminality has come full circle, and the Fords are sitting right in the middle of it in one way or another.

But don’t worry, maintains Robbie … everything’s fine!