Remember that mayor who was caught smoking crack?

[Dave (imported)]

>>When news stories turn bizarre, they are irresitable.

>>This one is too deliciously corrupt not to post THE UPDATES...

>>

>>breaking news

>>

>>

Rob Ford Scandal: Did Toronto Mayor Know And Lie About Alleged 'Crackstarter' Video?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/

30/rob-ford-scandal-toronto-mayor-crackstarter-video_n_3359236.html

In another bizarre turn to the Rob Ford "Crackstarter" saga, The Star reports that the embattled Toronto mayor told his staff "not to worry" about a video that allegedly shows him smoking crack because "he knew where it was."

According to the report, Ford held a meeting on May 17 to address the video scandal with senior staffers. The Star's sources say that during the briefing, Ford told his aides he not only knew the video's whereabouts, but also gave an exact address, which he said he obtained from "our sources."

These details come in direct conflict with Ford's public denial, made a week later.

"I do not use crack cocaine, nor am I an addict of crack cocaine," Ford said on May 24

. "As for a video, I cannot comment on a video that I have never seen,

or does not exist."

The Star goes on to write that operations and logistics director David Price approached then-chief of staff Mark Towhey with a hypothetical situation regarding the video:

“Hypothetically,” Price asked Towhey, if someone had told him where the video was, “What would we do?”

The straitlaced former military man told Price that nobody should do anything other than contact police.

At one point, according to an account of the conversation, Towhey was heard to remark, “We’re not getting the f---ing thing!”

His concern was that, if a video existed, someone could be killed for it.

A week after the staff meeting to address the scandal and a day before his public denial of the video, Ford fired Towhey on May 23. According to The Star, Towhey was fired after he suggested the mayor "seek help for his health."

More eyebrows have been raised in the case since it was revealed that Anthony Smith, 21, who appears alongside Ford in a photo sent to Gawker by the video's owners, was shot and killed at the end of March, The National Post reports.

Two reporters for The Star and John Cook, an editor for Gawker, claim that the men who sold Ford drugs have shown them the alleged video of the Toronto mayor smoking crack and spouting slurs. Gawker subsequently launched its "Crackstarter" campaign to raise $200,000, the asking price for obtaining a copy of the recording. The campaign has hit its goal, though Gawker has not yet obtained the video.

Rather than shrink from the controversy, Ford has taken to the offensive, calling the media

"a bunch of maggots" on his weekly radio show.

On Monday, Ford's

press secretary George Christopoulos and deputy press secretary Isaac Ransom

quit their positions in city hall. The Toronto mayor also apologized for his public outburst against the media.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/

30/rob-ford-scandal-toronto-mayor-crackstarter-video_n_3359236.html

[Riverwind (imported)]

Don't you just love a good scandal, MOI, if your watching this is what a scandal looks like, not that other crap you keep sending me.

Dave, keep us up to date on this, it seems to get better every day.

River

[StefanIsMe (imported)]

Rob Ford is a big, fat tub of pork-barrel who puffs up Toronto's already-bloated image of itself.

They voted him in because without conciously realizing it, Torontonians saw in Rob Ford.... Toronto itself; over-grown, loud, bullying, full of drugs, a constant high alcohol content, all mixed into a basically affable, loveable fuck-up whos cheeks you just want to pinch.

The rest of us Canadians are enjoying his bright flare-out, though. If nothing else, he IS fun to watch!

[A-1 (imported)]

Entitled, "The Crack-head CRACKS out..."

[Dave (imported)]

>>ooooh lala, I will let the article speak for itself. This might be the end of it all. I hear the chickens clukcing and the yellow-bellies warbling, and the sapsuckers sucking wind...

>>;)

>>

>>

Rob Ford Crack Video May Be 'Gone,' Gawker Editor John Cook Says

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0

6/04/rob-ford-gawker-crack-video_n_3386609.html

The bizarre, weeks-long saga surrounding Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and his alleged use of crack cocaine might be coming to an anti-climactic close.

On May 16, Gawker Editor-in-Chief John Cook claimed to have seen video of Ford smoking a crack pipe. Shortly thereafter, Gawker opened a page on crowdfunding platform Indiegogo to raise $200,000 from readers to purchase the footage from its Canadian proprietor, a man Cook would describe as a drug dealer linked to Ford.

Gawker met the $200,000 goal on May 27, but had days earlier lost contact with the video's owner. On Tuesday evening, Cook confirmed that the video might really be "gone."

The "Crackstarter" campaign became an international sensation, generating major media coverage in both Canada and the United States. That intense scrutiny apparently played a role in the video's failure to materialize. "The owner was trying to sell the video," Cook writes, "but he apparently didn't want or anticipate the media circus that erupted after the story broke." Also factoring in, Cook says, was pressure from Toronto's ethnic Somali community on the video's owner, identified as a Somali man by the Toronto Star.

As Cook writes:

According to the intermediary, these two factors—a fear of being identified, and a strong desire from the Somali community to make the whole thing go away—led the owner of the video to go to ground and soured the owner's relationship with the intermediary...

Which brings us to this past Friday, when the intermediary called to tell me that he had finally heard from the owner. And his message was: "It's gone. Leave me alone." It was, the intermediary told me, a short conversation.

On May 24, Ford denied during a press conference that he smoked crack cocaine, and insisted that video of him engaging in the illicit act did not exist. However, the Toronto Star reported that Ford had earlier met with staffers

to assure them such a video was n

o cause for concern because "he knew where it was."

If the video fails to turn up "soon," Cook writes, Gawker will donate the money it raised from its Indiegogo campaign to "a Canadian nonprofit that addresses substance abuse issues."

[Riverwind (imported)]

Is Cook related to Issa, making up stuff without any proof?

River

[Dave (imported)]

I don't know. familial relationships are possible but not probable as we used to say in the science business...

This video is turning into a shit bomb -- when it blows, everything nearby is covered in stink...

[A-1 (imported)]

Is Cook related to Issa, making up stuff without any proof?

River

Why, SURE, he has proof.

You just have to smoke the right STUFF in a pipe to "SEE" it.

[Dave (imported)]

Between my dinner and my dessert and my watching JEOPARDY, I surfed up the news for ROB FORD the Toronto mayor who is the subject of this video...

By subject, I mean the guy supposed to be smoking crack.

1) Funny or Die has a video up that I suspect is a fake because it's so gratuitously awful... It's low resolution, looks like pancake makeup and a fat suit. DON'T TRUST IT and beware of any site that says they have it. BEWARE of the fake... I won't link to it. People believe any shit they see and it is shit. Not that I am defending Ford, he's a pile of shit too.

2) On the Canadian news services and GAWKER there are reports of various untrustworthy or unverifiable emails from a variety of people: One claiming to be Rob Ford's lawyer that can't write the English Language properly, a second by friends who supposedly know the owner of the video and talk about "her" grandmother forbidding the sale of it because it would bring "shame" on the family, A third by people who reportedly are in the "know" and yet they are not located in Etobicoke Ontario, Several other first hand accounts of people looking at phones that are held tight by the supposed taker without supporting evidence.

SO the lesson is be skeptical about any of this. The people who have said they've seen it have been rushed through it with excuses like the battery is dead or the battery is low or the owner yanks it away after one viewing -- all very suspicious.

I think that fat ass Rob Ford has done drugs and did loaf with drug users but I can't say for certain this video is real or contains what the owners claim. "IMHO" is not proof in this case.

3) The one screen shot (picture) that is being verified shows Rob Ford with two men -- one of the (flipping the camera the bird) died in March of this year. Foul PLay is the word on that. So is the mayor a crack head? Yeah, that's quite believable. Lie down with dogs and get up with fleas.

4) They have identified the house used for drugs that is in the video --- it's in Etobicoke and police have visited it with warrants, etc.. The neighbors call it a drug house. That part of the story is true.

5) still no person stepping forward and publicly admitting to using cocaine with the MAyor. Remember that anyone can anonymously claim they did to reporters and stay hidden but the truth will be standing in the open and accusing the mayor. Of course, that would mean admitting that they did wrong too. There is no honor among thieves.

My soapbox is leaving the building, bye bye!

[A-1 (imported)]

The old, grey mayor, he ain't what he used to be...