Just how fucking stupid are Ford supporters, anyway? | #TOpoli

Dipshit's latest performance in the wake of Monday night's rainstorm shouldn't be any surprise. Yeah, we know – the mayor's office is currently occupied by a petulant, incompetent, man-child with no abstract thinking skills, no grasp of the difference between true and false, and a sense of entitlement the size of a Cadillac Escalade. Tell me something I don't know.

Seriously, though – Nenshi comparisons aside, the guy's idea of leadership is to sit in his fucking SUV with the engine running and the A/C cranked while the city staffers he spends his days pissing on actually work to fix things? And then tell everyone else to reduce their power consumption? How can anyone still take this fuckwit seriously, let alone support him?

Nothing new here either, except maybe confirmation that reading the Sun or listening to Jerry Agar makes stupid people even stupider. [*cough* NunziataMinnan-WongDiGiorgioKellyPalacioCrisantiMammo *cough*] This is how what's left of Ford Asspimple thinks:

They don't want to pay taxes to fund the maintenance of public infrastructure, but when it rains and the sewer system overflows, they'll complain about having to waddle through puddles of their own shit.

They don't want to pay taxes to support programs that keep at-risk youth out of trouble, and then they sit and bitch about crime.

They don't want to pay taxes for realistic and affordable public transit, but they'll whine about gridlock and blame it on bike lanes and streetcars.

At this point, anyone who can still support Rob Ford is just as much of a moron as he is, and even if there once was a reason to pretend otherwise, that reason's toast by now. These people are so stupid, shallow, resentful and easily manipulated that they'll swim in their own shit just to spite everyone else. I wouldn't give a fuck, except that they're getting it all over everything, and high-fiving each other at what's probably the greatest accomplishment of what passes for their lives.

Related posts:

• Via @cityslikr: #Fordfest, integrity, and the slow but steady fouling of the public sphere | #TOpoli
• Mayor Stupid plays grabass with @ThomsonTO. Fuckwits rush to excuse it | #TOpoli
• @ThomsonTO fires back at @TOMayorFord. Cue flying-monkey / Sun "reader" attack | #TOpoli

Media culpa: Margaret Wente and quotes: Who said that?

Media culpa: Margaret Wente and quotes: Who said that?:

'via Blog this'

Carol Wainio providing more quality control for the Globe. And God love her, because the brain trust on Front Street obviously won't do it.

Related posts:

• Carol Wainio and a couple more Wente-isms: Nothing to see here
• Wente, the Gelber, and the Globe: more quality control from Carol Wainio
• Media culpa: The Globe and Mail: Driving home a point about plagiarism

@ThomsonTO fires back at @TOMayorFord. Cue flying-monkey / Sun "reader" attack | #TOpoli

As my good friend @Cityslikr pointed out earlier today, there's no contortion too painful, no logical leap too implausible, for the boil on Toronto's ass formerly known as Ford Nation. Our guy under attack? Never mind the lies, never mind the ignorance, never mind the sexism, never mind the racism, never mind the homophobia -- just another leftist conspiracy by a bunch of sore-loser special-interest teat-suckers.

So it seems Mayor Stupid suggested on his radio show today that Sarah Thomson might not be playing with a full deck. Well, wasn't that an invitation for a good old-fashioned mud fight, because Sarah's fired back on Facebook. The money quote:

Unlike the Mayor, I do not have a history of lying about my behaviour. Mayor Ford has lied publicly numerous times. He denied the drunken incident where he verbally assaulted a Durham couple during a hockey game but later admitted to it. And During 2010 civic election campaign he denied being arrested for pot possession in Florida and then admitted it and another DUI charge. The Mayor has a history of denial but usually owns up to his mistakes once the facts become overwhelming and I expect that he will eventually own up to this one.

Sigh. This little corner isn't going to come right out and say it, but then really, who needs to? But goddamn if the comments on Sarah's FB note didn't take a wrong-way turn down the road to Sun Commentville. Check these out:

Hoo boy. All the trademarks -- the bad spelling, the non-existent grammar, the spittle-flecked hatred, the stolid, wooden-headed, belligerent ignorance, and the determination to overlook patterns, discount evidence, reject analogies and excuse misbehaviour in their boy while simultaneously rushing to undermine, question and practically lynch anyone who questions him.

As I pointed out to @cityslikr, there's no engaging with these people. They're so wrapped up in their identification with Mayor Stupid that an accusation aimed at him is a personal attack on them. And perhaps they're getting some vicarious kicks out of him getting all fucked up and then pawing at women in public. Maybe they can't get away with it, but it does their hearts good to see Robbie getting away with it ... and with way more.

Well, that's Ford Asspimple for you. Maybe they don't care that the rules don't apply to Mayor Stupid. Maybe they don't care that unlike everyone else, he doesn't have to face any consequences when he breaks them. But come 2014, how well will that play with the adults?

Related posts:

Mayor Stupid plays grabass with @ThomsonTO. Fuckwits rush to excuse it

Mayor Stupid plays grabass with @ThomsonTO. Fuckwits rush to excuse it | #TOpoli

Well, maybe he was so fucked up he thought he was coaching football or something. Football players do that, don't they?

Ed Keenan and Ivor Tossell have already weighed in on this, so not much to add to their analysis, but I have one question for the "Ford Nation" deadheads rushing to the mayor's support:

You think you'd be able to get away with this shit? Yeah, I know the guy's apparently Teflon-coated, and no matter what the left-wing conspiracy throws at him, he manages to skate, but why don't you try pulling some of his shit? You know -- scream drunken obscenities at women at hockey games, flip the bird at women in traffic, call women "wastes of skin," blow off female integrity commissioners and ombudsmen, or grab their asses in public ... and see if you can walk away without a scratch.

All we can do, really, is hunker down and ride out the next year and a half while trying not to be distracted by the daily embarrassments. What else is there to do?

Related posts:

• Just how does Mayor Stupid propose to pay for any kind of public infrastructure?
• Mayor Stupid on the Danzig shootings
• Rob Ford's mayoral trajectory | #TOpoli

Conflict of interest, Mayor Stupid, and the Globe's stunning incoherence

There was a short-lived meme on Twitter recently, riffing on the Teutonic gift for coining words that have no exact English equivalent, but nevertheless capture meanings beautifully. "Schadenfreude" is one of the best examples. (I'm trying not to indulge at the moment.)

So I'm left wondering whether there's a German expression for times when reprehensible people appear to do the right thing, albeit for questionable reasons and in contexts which make the rightness of their actions suspect.

As we all know by now, Judge Charles Hackland, ruling in the conflict of interest proceedings brought against Rob Ford, has ruled that Mayor Stupid must be removed from office. No surprise at the finding, although there was a fair bit of energy backing the prediction that the court would somehow find a way not to apply the maximum penalty.

However, it's the reaction of our supposed Newspaper of Record^TM that begs further examination. As the pinstriped pamphleteers of Front Street argue:

Mr. Ford didn’t want to play by the rules. Not the ones he didn’t like, anyway, such as those governing conflict of interest.

Well, no argument there, although it's not as if the observation first came to life in the Front Street drawing room over brandy and cigars. Pious and paternalistic, but essentially correct. But it's what comes after that triggers the WTF:

The country’s biggest city gave him a strong mandate to reduce costs and attack what Mr. Ford described as a culture of entitlement at City Hall. He has even had some success.

Um ... what?

[Slim Pickens voice]
Did you say "Attack a Culture of Entitlement?"
[/Slim Pickens voice]

Is there anyone who embodies that more than Mayor Stupid and Brother Dumbfuck? A pair of guys who think they can flout the rules and blow off the consequences whenever they feel like it because … because ... shut the fuck up, OK? Taxpayers taxpayers taxpayers, subways subways subways, mandate, drool, release the trolls.

Let's review: here's a guy who thinks he's entitled to

• Phone Andy Byford and demand to know where his bus is
• Abuse and demean public servants
• Ignore the rules whenever they don't conform to his own sense of what's right
• Demand that city staff fix the road in front of his family business
• Blow off his official responsibilities to go coach football, and use public resources to do it

And that's just off the top of my head.

But let's move on, and compare that to the Globe's support for their charming ideological brethren in Ottawa, and ...

• electoral fraud
• robocalls
• naked attacks on dissent
• instructions for disrupting parliamentary committees
• secret "free-trade" deals
• Mordor
• embarrassment and damage to Canada's international reputation.

These are the people, mind, whom the Globe endorses as a way of "finding new ways to protect Parliament."

Are you fucking kidding me?

(But never mind all that just now -- is there a trend we might not be catching? Like, omigaaaawd ... )

In the continuing train wreck otherwise known as the Wente Clusterfuck, it's easy to lose sight of our National Fishwrap's many other acts of civic and linguistic vandalism. While this little corner isn't fit to polish Carol Wainio's flatware, perhaps this one little bit of paint on the cave wall might merit a footnote.

Related posts:

• "Find new ways to protect Parliament?" WTF?
• Woodward and Bernstein are dead
• @marcusbgee calls Ford on his bullshit, but who helped put him there?
• Why it's important to kill off the Pissed-off Taxpayer meme

Carol Wainio and a couple more Wente-isms: Nothing to see here

Here and here.

Second one even picks apart the correction, or clarification, or whatever the fudging mechanism the Globe's  using is called.

Uh-huh.

Well, I guess if the Sun's betting its saleability on Sue Ann Levy, we shouldn't be that surprised if the corporate meat puppets on Front Street are having similar thoughts.

Related posts:

• Wente, the Gelber, and the Globe: more quality control from Carol Wainio
• Media culpa: The Globe and Mail: Driving home a point about plagiarism
• Carol Wainio rips Terence Corcoran and Margaret Wente a new one

Wente, the Gelber, and the Globe: more quality control from Carol Wainio

Another persuasive argument from Carol Wainio, who, beyond providing a stellar illustration of the value of independent academia, is making a convincing case for herself as a national treasure.

In her latest post, Prof. Wainio takes issue with the participation of disgraced Globe columnist Margaret Wente on the jury for the Gelber Prize — a supposedly prestigious award presented by the Gelber Foundation and the University of Toronto's Munk School for Global Affairs. With all this academic and financial star power, one would think academic integrity would be a prerequisite for all involved. As Prof. Wainio argues:

Don’t universities take strong public standards against plagiarism?  What would the University of Toronto or The Munk School (partners in the award) do with students who engaged in these practices? 

Having documented repeated instances of, at the very least, sloppy attribution or "originality problems" from Wente, it's entirely in order for Prof. Wainio to be raising such a question. She goes on, however, to compare another column from Wente to recent work from Walter Russell Mead and fellow Globe columnist Gary Mason, and to note Wente's evident "efficiency" in using the same material for two columns two weeks apart.

Well, we can't fault Wente for her embrace of the 3 Rs. But, as Prof. Wainio points out:

Are these as serious as past instances?  No.  But they do reflect a kind of practice, a habit, and dare one say, a kind of entitlement.  Given all that, and what was pretty universally described as the dreadful way Ms. Wente and her editors dealt with the more serious instances, one has to wonder why the Gelber Prize, the University of Toronto and the Munk School chose to rely so heavily on jurors associated with that particular newspaper ...

I've already pointed out the invaluable work Prof. Wainio does in providing the quality control that the senior editors of the Globe apparently refuse to do. It's particularly salient in this case, given both Wente and Mead's professed disdain for the kind of free and independent inquiry supposedly ensured by the institution of academic tenure, but it's even more valuable for the context it provides. Since it's clear that we're not going to get any critical analysis of Wente's, er, "work" from the Globe, Prof. Wainio's observations are essential as a reality check. They give readers the information they need in order to understand what they're getting from Wente.

And moreover, they put a rather jarring spotlight on the ideological and managerial decisions being taken in the executive suites on Front Street. It's not as if the warnings aren't there; while I'm not rushing to embrace the National Putz, Chris Selley raised several questions about the Globe's handling of the Wente scandal and its implications for the Gelber Prize in another essay late last week:

The Globe didn’t seem bothered about being seen to do anything, and I think it wound up leaving a widespread impression that it did nothing ... Maybe some principles are worth bending if sticking to them upsets the official Canadian chattering class hierarchy in which Margaret Wente plays house contrarian.

Nothing new about the smug, oblivious attitude the Globe appears to be taking toward this, or its condescending dismissal of mere "bloggers." It goes hand-in-hand with Wente's cringe-inducing poor-me non-apology in September.

What's left, however, are lingering questions about the Globe's credibility — questions which only grow more insistent the longer the Front Street brain trust tries to pretend they're not there.

(For even better takes on this, please read thwap and Sixth Estate.)

Related posts:

• Carol Wainio rips Terence Corcoran and Margaret Wente a new one
• This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Newspapers
• The real issue here is that, even after all of the flaccid apologies, the Globe is doubling down on upholding an editorial regime which gives its tacit approval to this sort of behaviour ...
• Did anybody see where Margaret Wente?

Media culpa: The Globe and Mail: Driving home a point about plagiarism

Media culpa: The Globe and Mail: Driving home a point about plagiarism:

'via Blog this'

Carol Wainio: doing more for quality control than the entire Front Street management team.

Either they don't get it or they're wilfully blind. Either way, not a confidence-builder.

Related posts:

• Carol Wainio rips Terence Corcoran and Margaret Wente a new one
• This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Newspapers
• Did anybody see where Margaret Wente?

Facts About The “Nazi” Salute and a Double Standard « Sister Sage's Musings

Facts About The “Nazi” Salute and a Double Standard « Sister Sage's Musings:

'via Blog this'

Sister Sage has the most comprehensive smackdown yet to the pearl-clutchers of the B'nai Brith getting their gutkes in a twist over Montreal demonstrators Sieg Heiling the cops.

Fascism is fascism, boychiks. The folks getting their heads beaten in get to call it as they see it, whether it offends you or not. Quit fardraying us a kopf.

Related posts:

• We have witnessed extraordinary ongoing police violence and abuse of authority in Quebec during the past few weeks ...
• When a government has abused its powers as regularly and as grotesquely as this one, it forfeits the benefit of the doubt.
• Violence and red squares – Artists outraged by minister St-Pierre (Le Devoir)
• My trip to jail for reading 1984 on the metro (First-Hand Account)

Lying cops, Mark Pugash, and the Star: Where we juxtapose, once again

Three links to start off with: one from the CBC and two from the Star. Excerpts follow.

New homicide chief on fighting 'code of silence'

Staff Insp. Greg McLane told CBC Radio’s Metro Morning that a lack of information can frustrate investigators, especially when it is known that witnesses were present when a crime took place.

Just like the witnesses who were there when Dorian Barton's arm was broken, or when Sean Salvati was beaten and then paraded around naked, or when Adam Nobody was beaten and kicked in the face. Have we mentioned that most of those witnesses were cops? And that it took the Star to out Glenn Weddell?

So Bob Rae's still an unctuous, spineless, weaselly hypocrite? Carry on then

We can't pretend to be surprised at the Harper Regime's appeal to the socon mouth breathers. That's part of their playbook, and we've known that all along.

But when you read that Bob's not going to whip the vote on Wankworth's misogynist merry-go-round (h/t @JeninCanada), the first thing that comes to mind, as the Dawgster points out, is his failure on a similar matter almost 20 years ago.

The Ethical Oil Spokespuppet Smear

A little bauble I ran across today ...



I can't say for sure whether Ezra and Kathryn are faithfully represented, as I've never met them in person, but ... snerk.

(h/t Jymn)

Related posts:

• Let Freedom Rain: "National Necrophilia Week": Ezra Levant wears orange wig, drinks Orange Crush. Mocks Layton's passing
• A little kosher wine with that crow, Ezra?
• Could someone please change Ezra's diaper?

@ToewsVic has brought this humiliation upon himself | #cdnpoli

... with his contemptible, sanctimonious hypocrisy.

With regard to @Vikileaks30, the sordid details of Toews' personal life were not "leaked." They were set out in public documents available to anyone with reasonably effective research skills. There was no breach of the law, so there's nothing to investigate.

I can't really improve on the Dawg's description, so I'll just cite it here:

Those details were already public record, obtained without the warrantless taps and probes that the Public Safety Minister wanted to lay on the rest of us. They expose the unpleasant fact that the man who ran on a platform of “family values,” and preached to the world about the “sanctity of marriage” and what-not, is an arrant hypocrite. 

He then added to that by stating that all those who opposed his thuggish bill were “standing with child pornographers”—and then calling the leaks “gutter politics,” as he was still dripping head to toe from a close encounter with one. 

Now he has further compounded his hypocrisy by demanding an investigation to track down the identity of “Vikileaks,” who has committed no crime and done nothing remotely actionable. Whining about his own privacy, he sees nothing wrong with outing the Tweeter who mocked him.

Oh, but it gets better. The Minister apparently doesn't even know what's in the legislation he's spearheading.

This after accusing critics of the bill of standing with child pornographers, and then trying to walk that back.

Sanctimony, hypocrisy, disgusting personal conduct, and a vindictive authoritarian streak, coupled with a willingness to smear opponents and whine like a coward when his own dirty laundry gets an airing.

Resign? What the fuck for? This guy's clearly the pride of the Harper cabinet.

Related posts:

• How to hold them accountable: let them embarrass themselves | #policeaccountability
• Opposing the #HarperRegime: thinking strategically over the next four years
• Harper's "tough on crime" bill: meaner, more expensive, and not making us any safer
• Meme for the week: Harper – too dangerous to govern

@GeorgeMonbiot takes down the corporate media

George Monbiot – Unmasking the Press:

'via Blog this'

Too bad about Hitchens, but the best thing I've found about the corporate media this week comes from Monbiot. Everything you need to know, including the essential 99 percent versus 1 per cent dynamic, is in here.

Oh, look: everything Team Ford touches turns to crap. Don't look so surprised

I'm all for respectful dialogue and agreeing to disagree, but there's a point at which you just have to admit it: we are right and they are wrong and clinging to their illusions just makes them look even dumber.

For Christ's sakes. All those disgruntled Ford voters out there who are suddenly discovering that Mayor Stupid has no commitment to transparency and just loves him some tacky backroom waterfront deals with big developers – what the hell did you expect?

An election message from conssayyes and #Harperslegacyofshame

Well. The Dammit Janet folks are on a roll today.

Via the Tweeter, a must-see video from conssayyes. If you're indifferent about this election, if you're not sure how to vote, or if you're not even that motivated to vote at all, watch this.

Libya yes, Bahrain no

So the Western war machine is revving up to go to work in Libya because it's a clearcut situation of humanitarian intervention.

It's obvious, isn't it? An entrenched autocratic regime, enriched by oil revenue, brutally repressing the popular aspirations of its own people.

The Chara hit on Pacioretty and the NHL's feckless response

  

By now we all know what happened, of course, but what's really telling is the sequence of events in the aftermath.

The Harper Government's tipping point

The Globe's Lawrence Martin catalogues the many indicators of the Harper Government's abuse of power.

Read it here.

This is what happens when you enable dictators

Apparently the Egyptian security forces have started rounding up foreign journalists in Cairo.