It’s still pretty heavily redacted, but the Project Brazen document detailing the surveillance of Rob Ford and the parade of shady characters he cavorts with, originally released on October 31st, has been cleared for public release.

I’ve just started skimming it so I have no comments just yet, but I recommend you grab yourself a copy and peruse at your leisure: http://www.torontocitylife.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Ford_Court_Documents_Nov13_2013.pdf

Greatest of apologies, dear TCL reader, for our unexpected outage over the past few days. I’d accidentally allowed the domain name to lapse, which shouldn’t have been a big issue except … it was! After three “escalations”, four assurances that things were restored (apparently no one checked to see if this was actually true or not), and what I honestly estimate as roughly 8 hours on the phone with multitudes of customer service reps, I finally managed to break through to someone beyond front-line support.

Although I was shitting bricks about the situation, the end result is infinitely better than the whore bitches at 1&1 Internet, a domain registrar I was with previously who quite literally sold another one of my established domains without so much as a peep (and I spent an entire month trying to contact those fuckers, that time well in advance of the expiration).

I’ve worked hard over the past 5 years to build up TCL to where it is today, and the thought of someone stealing it from me was unbearable. Plus there’s the matter of email addresses which, whoever the other domain was sold to, can now abuse and use to hack into any associated accounts I’d neglected to change. Nightmare.

I left 1&1 a long time ago, and I highly suggest that if you have any accounts with them that you move them ASAP. Or you can discover for yourself how little recourse customers have when shit goes south — much like being stuck with Rob Ford for four years.

In any event, thanks to my host for finally getting their shit together, and thank you for your patience!

After everything that happened this week, I’m sure that Newstalk 1010 would’ve had some kick-ass ratings with this Sunday’s “The City”, a.k.a. the RoFoDoFo radio show.

Alas, it seems that is not to be — the Ford brothers have decided to pull the plug, which probably came as unhappy news to Newstalk who were still expecting the show to go ahead as planned. I was certainly looking forward to it, if only to hurl insults at the radio.

The station pointed out that the Ford brothers are still very welcome “as guests”, which suggested that something final was involved behind the scenes. In other words, it’s not looking like the RoFoDoFo Show will be back any time soon :(

It’s hard to imagine how things could turn out well for Robbie and his brother now.

There’s news of a third video with Rob Ford in it now, which may or may not include be the “kill” tirade that the Sun just posted.

The second one is rumoured to involve Rob, a lady for hire, and some blow (uncorroborated rumour, but sounds plausible no?)

The first video is, of course, the infamous and soon-to-be-released crack video.

You’d think Rob would step down if not just to get out of the media glare. I mean, this shit’s gone international. But he’s hanging in there, somehow. What could drive a man so?

Diane Ford, mother to Rob, city councillor Doug and two other siblings appeared on the brothers’ Sunday afternoon radio program on Newstalk 1010. It was probably meant to be a heartwarming Mothers’ Day segment, but then it got awkward.

Rob did some math and realized that with his sister Kathy born in 1960, brother Randy in 1962 and brother “Dougie” in 1964, he broke the pattern.

“So you must’ve had this planned — two, two, two,” said Rob. “Then I don’t know what happened. Five years later you decided to have me in 1969.”

“What was going on there, ma?”

“I guess it was an afterthought,” said mom Diane.

“Wow,” Ford replied.

“You were supposed to be a girl,” said Diane.

“I was supposed to be a girl?” replied Ford, sounding a bit surprised.

“Yeah,” said Diane.

“Wow.”

http://o.canada.com/news/local/rob-ford-was-supposed-to-be-a-girl-says-mom/

I didn’t think that Diane could top her awkward comments at seeing Rob’s colourful portrait, but she is a Ford, after all.

I’m sure that the Ford brothers can’t be reduced down to just one single childhood influence, but I do think that this kind of information might worm it’s way into the imminent movie of the week.

Look, Rob, now you’ve gone and made Jim Flaherty cry! ARE YOU HAPPY?!

Having just heard Doug Ford lashing out at the Chief of Police this morning (then discussing journalism law and ethics with a group of Ryerson students), demanding that the Chief be investigated for being in conflict of interest in making a statement about how he personally felt after seeing the crack video, I was about to let loose with a bunch of F-bombs and litany of lies-and-hypocrisy-exposing links. Seriously…conflict of interest?!

But then…

First came the news that a growing chorus on Council is finally getting in gear and making motions to effectively nullify the mayor’s and his deputy’s powers:

Second was the expected-but-still-shocking admission by Robbie: yes, he did smoke crack. Probably while heavily drunk, though surprisingly Robbie recalls both that it happened about a year ago and what the media were asking him in May of this year. The reason he didn’t answer media questions about his crack use honestly, says Ford, is not because he was lying but because they didn’t ask him the right questions. Apparently they just kept referring to alcohol.

Well, here we are. So should the cops now do as Robbie demanded a couple of days ago and arrest him? Will the Fords go down with some shred of decency, or will they go down as unabashed villains?

Many people are suggesting that Fordo’s apology on this past weekend’s RoFoDoFo Show installment didn’t go far enough. I agree, but I’m not so amorphous about it.

Sarah and I tuned in yesterday afternoon and we were surprised to hear what sounded like real remorse in Rob’s voice. If he was faking it, he did a great job. And I accept it — as far as it went — because Robbie was very specific about what he was apologizing for: being plastered at Taste of Danforth this year, and being even more off-the-hook at an earlier St. Patrick’s Day celebration.

More than once, Rob re-iterated that this is specifically what he was apologizing for — make no mistake.

So first off, thank you, Mayor Ford, for what I perceived as genuine contrition and a recognition that being publicly intoxicated is unseemly. Your Freudian but refreshingly honest slip that this “hopefully” won’t happen again was good to hear.  And you know what? Although I don’t recall going to the extent that you did, I admit to having some crazy fun party nights myself so I’m not going to be a dick and hold you to to what your brother calls “lily-white holier-than-thou” standards. It’s true, very few of us are innocent on that end.

I hope that a search through TCL’s archives will reveal that your partying or drug use were never really the issue, though you have to admit that some drugs really do affect the mind more than others, and as someone charged with the health and welfare of millions, I don’t think it’s unrealistic that such things should be considered while holding the office of Mayor.

The real issue  is that you have been and continue to tip-toe around your truthlessness.

Remember the last time people asked you about your drug use back when you were running for mayor?

[Ford] adamantly denied having been charged when first approached by the Sun.

“No to answer your question,” Ford said.

“I’m dead serious. When I say no, I mean never. No question. Now I’m getting offended. No means no.”

But after Ford was provided with details from a Florida state criminal history record obtained by the Sun, he admitted the incident.

“I completely forgot about it until you mentioned it right now,” he said.

I mean, that’s it in a nutshell. Someone challenges you with something, and your first response is to attack them. I’m sure it’d be physical if only it was legal. Often you resort to insults that both you and your brother hurl in equal measure. It’s not inaccurate to say that denial, anger, deflection, and many things un-mayorly — and moreover uncivil — are the product of your natural demeanour.

It isn’t until confronted with irrefutable proof that you finally admit to not being “perfect” and claim to show some contrition which ends up being false.

So in the end, you’re not sorry at all, your apology is a lie, and your original statement is a lie. Liar McLiarPants.

And don’t try to blame the drugs — they might make you feel invincible, carefree, etc., but there are no substances that I’m aware of that make you an incessant liar.

If you recognized these things, the voice acting you do on the air would be genuinely convincing — sounding like you’re sorry, and saying things that indicate the same would really be something.

Actually saying something would also be helpful, because currently you’ve got your brother on LeDrew’s program filling your void and suggesting that you were probably just taking an innocent hour-long stroll from your place to the infamous crack video location and just happened to be accosted by some friendly fellows with whom you posed for one of the “tens of thousands” of photos that you pose for every year.

Or, maybe the other explanation that Councillor Ford is putting forth is that you just happened to be driving in that neighbourhood (or were being driven), and simply popped out for an impromptu, sweatshirted photo op with a bunch of strangers, all of which incidentally happened in front of a famous crack house.

All of the substantiated evidence points to something more and something very obvious, yet here you are still not being terribly forthright. You won’t address anything until, once again, the evidence is too obvious and stark. And then you’ll probably chalk it up to yet another misunderstanding.

Only thing is, we’d all have to be awfully dumb to keep misunderstanding what you’re really doing, Mayor Ford.