Right Wing Crack Addicts Trey Radel And Rob Ford Believe They're Above The Law

Right wing slobs Rob Ford and Trey Radel

Manmohan Singh has been Prime Minister of India for a decade. This morning, he announced he would not run again in order to make way for young blood. I understand the feeling and it was certainly the way I felt when I decided to leave Warner Bros. The only way for people to move up is for people at the top to move on. Singh is backing Rahul Gandhi (age 43, son of Rajiv Gandhi) for the job. There is fear in India that the far right has a chance of taking over with neo-fascist bigot Narendra Modi becoming the next Prime Minister. Modi is comparable to Ted Cruz, maybe worse.

You probably read already that delusional Republican Party crack addict Trey Radel, a former Hate Talk Radio host from Fort Myers, Florida, is running for Congress again. It was widely assumed he would have a strong primary challenge, and Florida Governor Rick Scott has asked him to resign, as has the Florida Republican Party. That he'll have a primary is no longer an assumption. With his phony-baloney "rehab" ending just in time for the congressional session starting up again Tuesday, he's already drawn one heavily financed challenger. The so-called Values are Vital PAC has two donors-- Ronald Firman, who ponied up $525,000, and Las Vegas lawyer Martin Burns, who contributed $485,000. They're backing ex-state Rep. Paige Kreegel, who Radel beat in the 2012 primary. Paige is a male. So is Connie Mack, the former congressman from the district who left the job to run a disastrous Senate race against Bill Nelson. Connie Mack will probably run again this year too, in which case he would be the heavy favorite.

Even more bizarre is sometimes snowbird and all-the-time crackhead Rob Ford, another far right kook, this one mayor of Toronto. He filed for reelection Thursday. There are no reports that he was in a drunken and/or coked-up stupor when he showed up at City Hall and filed. Calling himself "the best mayor this city has ever had," he also promised "Ford more years." Progressives are backing MP Olivia Chow. Bizarrely, polling shows Ford with stable approval numbers just north of 40%. (Chow's numbers, though, approach 60%.)

What’s represented in the chart below is the percentage of people who have heard of the individual candidate who would vote for him or her. If all candidates were equally known, this would add up to 100 per cent. However, since name recognition is unequal, and that’s what we’re correcting for, it makes the totals in the below charts are greater than 100.) On November 14 Ipsos released a poll in which they asked people who they would vote for if the election were held tomorrow, and also measured how familiar people were with each candidate. If we run the numbers, we wind up with this:

Right-Wing Mayor Rob Ford Isn't Just A Hopeless And Delusional Drug Addict Of The Steve Stockman Variety

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It's a shame that most media covers Toronto Mayor as a clownish crackhead instead of what he actually is-- Canada's most prominent right-wing politician… and a clownish crackhead. Chris Christie is basically one crackpipe incident from being America's Rob Ford.

The rest of Canada's right-wing politicians are afraid of being tarnished by Ford's outrageous behavior, though not by his vehemently anti-family agenda. Today, when he finally admitted he had used crack-- after denying it for months and months-- he denied lying and just said to reporters "You didn't ask the correct questions." As of publication time, Ford still hasn't been taken into custody. He also says he has no reason to resign.

I just watched his re-elect speech! I live-tweeted it:

Inside the private Tory caucus room on the third floor of the legislature, Ford celebrated the victory of his loyal political lieutenant and longtime deputy mayor, Doug Holyday: By joining forces, the pair enabled the provincial Tories to claim their first Toronto election victory in 14 years.

At the campaign launch, Ford had warmly endorsed Holyday alongside PC Leader Tim Hudak; at an all-candidates' debate, Holyday gave him a grateful shout-out; and with the byelection triumph Ford swung by to give his blessings. So when Holyday was sworn in as the new MPP for Etobicoke-Lakeshore, Ford was the centre of attention at a reception inside the sanctum sanctorum of the Progressive Conservatives.

A polarizing force at city hall, Ford has cast a long shadow over Queen's Park since becoming mayor in 2010. That's because all politics is local-- especially provincial politics.

The opposition Tories embraced Ford as a godsend, a harbinger of a hard-right wave that could sweep Hudak to power by making inroads in Liberal-friendly Toronto.

The governing Liberals tiptoed around him, wary of a populist streak that could wreak havoc with their centrist, consensus-oriented premiers-- first Dalton McGuinty and then Kathleen Wynne.

Across the political divide, Ford was either revered as a demigod or reviled as a demagogue.

Hudak cozied up to Ford conspicuously, attending the mayor's annual barbeque in Etobicoke (though he missed the last one). Quite apart from their personal bond, however, Hudak has consciously appropriated Ford's political vision and vocabulary.

He spouts the same "gravy train" slogan made famous by Ford. And he has embraced the mayor's aversion to LRTs, insisting subways are the only form of mass transit worthy of a big city.

But the Tory leader isn't the only politician to fall under Ford's sway. McGuinty also acquiesced to the mayor's muddled thinking on subways by agreeing to bury, belatedly, the entire crosstown Eglinton LRT (until he and city council subsequently came to their senses). Wynne also buckled, opportunistically, to Ford's anti-LRT mindset by opting for a subway through low-density Scarborough.

For the Tories, the optics and politics of their close association with Ford will be hard to live down. When police chief Bill Blair confirmed that an incriminating video was in hand last Thursday, the Tories swiftly shifted into damage control:

As reporters sought comment from the normally voluble Holyday, Hudak's press aides literally tugged at the rookie MPP to leave, cutting off further questions. Again on Monday, when Holyday wandered over to chat, Tory communications aides scurried over to run interference-- until the MPP reassured them he was making small talk with me about a recent pickup hockey game.

Tory strategists say their current hypersensitivity is understandable. Many MPPs are mortified by the mayor's behaviour and want Hudak to keep his distance. Ford on his way up was assumed to be a net positive for the party; but a big city mayor on his way down is seen as a potential drag on Hudak.

The mayor's maverick brother, Doug, could also cause trouble for the Tories. He keeps musing publicly about running in the next provincial election in Etobicoke North-- a prospect Hudak has publicly welcomed but privately dreads. The mayor, however, is relishing his brother's provincial ambitions:

"Doug will be provincial, he will be premier one day," Ford boasted to a radio host Monday.

Realistically, the Ford factor may yet fizzle out by the time of the next election, just as it waned before the last one in 2011. After all, the Liberals' Fortress Toronto did not fall to Ford Nation two years ago.

So is Ford Nation an exaggeration? It would be a mistake to understate the impact of the Ford brothers, for they have coarsened our political discourse. Skewed policymaking and populist rhetoric will be their enduring legacy at Queen's Park, long after the Fords lose their grip at city hall.

Apparently two more Rob Ford videos are now in police custody and they are "bombshells," though not necessarily relevant to his crack cocaine addiction per se. There's stuff about rampant criminal activities and all the usual sick conservative obsessions with homophobia and racism. It all harkens back to Ford's Mussolini-like mayoral campaign. His right-wing populism and clownishness made him a hero among lo-info voters who distrust government and distrust elites. His blatant corruption is typical of conservative politicians in the U.S. but way beyond the pale for Canadians… and difficult for many Canadians to come to terms with.

Ford has taunted the police to arrest him and says he's not resigning. On Kiss 92.5FM he said, "If I did something illegal, then arrest me. Obviously I haven’t." It's just a matter of time before the police do release the video and do arrest Ford, hopefully this evening. I'm not sure why it's taking so long. Politicians always get special treatment, especially white ones.

Rob Ford: Chris Christie/Steve Stockman Meets Benito Mussolini

Rob Ford, The Canadian Chris Christie

Rob Ford is certainly a "fat fuck," but-- much worse-- he's a disgusting bigot, a thug and a quintessential conservative. But what's interesting about the "fat fuck" episode (just before the 3 minute mark on the video above) is that the reporter didn't call Ford a "fat fuck." It was the goon bodyguard who came up with the accusation that the reporter called him a "fat fuck" to change the subject and rattle the reporter. He and Ford then went on the attack, like two vicious overtly threatening hoodlums, chasing the reporter out of the room and ending the embarrassing interview. Watch Ford in action. It was the pathological behavior shown on this clip, rather than his obesity, that has caused people to call him the Chris Christie of Canada.

Watching his loutish, thuggish behavior, makes it hard to believe Ford was born into great wealth and to a politician dad to boot. Daddy tried to buy him a spot on a football team-- and Ford did get on his college squad, where he warmed the bench for the whole time he was on the team... and then dropping out when he realized he would never play a game. He also never got a college degree. He's also never had a real job in his life, having "worked" for the family firm until he started running for office, as an American style right-wing extremist and overt racist, over a dozen years ago. When called out for an anti-Italian racist comment, Ford shrugged it off: "I'm a conservative and the majority of people are left-wing and cannot stand my politics."

Ford is, needless to say, a virulently anti-gay bigot-- so much so that one has to wonder why he's so obsessed with homosexuality... and when he might be caught trying to have sex with an underage boy.

He managed to slip into Toronto's mayoralty in 2010 because it was a three-way race. He won 47% of the vote. He's the most corrupt mayor in recorded history and was found guilty of conflicts of interest and enough related crap to have a judge declare the mayor's seat empty. He's appealing and is allowed to keep the seat while the appeal works its way through the courts. But that isn't why he turned to drugs. He's been a drug abuser (as well as a belligerent alcoholic) for many years and, in fact, was arrested for driving under the influence of drugs in Miami. The Florida police who pulled him over found marijuana and he was convicted of possession, something he denied while running for mayor. Being a conservative, lying comes very naturally to Ford, not just when there are court records of drug possession, but even when he denied being at a hockey game, getting drunk and abusing people and being kicked out of the stadium by the police-- with hundreds of witnesses. When he says something-- anything-- he's as likely to be lying as telling the truth. And almost no one believes his current denials about having smoked crack. Last March, when he groped Sarah Thomson, a former mayoral candidate and publisher of the Women's Post. Thomson said he was either on coke or something like it, describing him as "talking quickly, out of it, arrogant... he was definitely out of it.”

And then the biggest scandal broke-- Ford palling around with some Somali drug dealers and smoking crack... which wound up on a cellphone video.

It appears to show Ford in a room, sitting in a chair, wearing a white shirt, top buttons open, inhaling from what appears to be a glass crack pipe. Ford is incoherent, trading jibes with an off-camera speaker who goads the clearly impaired mayor by raising topics including Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and the Don Bosco high school football team Ford coaches.

“I’m fucking right-wing,” Ford appears to mutter at one point. “Everyone expects me to be right-wing. I’m just supposed to be this great.…” and his voice trails off. At another point he is heard calling Trudeau a “fag.” Later in the 90-second video he is asked about the football team and he appears to say (though he is mumbling), “they are just fucking minorities.”

And now the cover-up, which seems to include the murder of one of the men trying to peddle the video-- has Ford's staffers resigning and running for their lives. All this promoted the national broadcasting company, the CBC, to publish a story yesterday about the outstanding questions in this case:

Where is the video?

For all the controversy that has been swirling, one crucial question remains: Where is the video?

The Star and Gawker have stood by their reports about the video. Ford has said it doesn't exist.

The Star's Doolittle has said she and Donovan were told there was more than one copy of the video. Gawker has said it has raised the $200,000 asking price, through crowd-sourcing, but has not been able to make contact with those who have the alleged video. It said Tuesday that it will give the sellers about a month to respond before it decides what else to do with the money; donating it to charities was the alternative.

According to published reports on May 28, someone on Ford's staff was told days ago about the potential location of the video, and passed that information along to police.

Has Rob Ford ever smoked crack cocaine?

Ford said on May 17 that he does not "use crack cocaine” and that he is not a crack cocaine addict. Questions remain as to whether he has used drugs in the past. Ford has yet to provide additional clarification.

What is the connection to Anthony Smith?

The people shopping the alleged Ford video would not provide a screen grab of what they had. But the alleged go-between did give the Toronto Star and Gawker a photo of the mayor with his arm around someone said to be Anthony Smith, a 21-year-old who was shot and killed outside a downtown nightclub in March.

CBC News has spoken to people who know the men in the picture, and confirmed they believe that the men in the photo are Smith and Muhammad Khattak, who was injured in that same shooting and whose face was pixellated in the original photo.

The mayor, who has a practice of coaching and working with young people, has simply said he gets his picture taken with many people.

The Toronto Star is now suggesting the cellphone with the alleged video may have belonged to Smith. Police haven't confirmed that is the case.

It's hard to imagine a nice city like Toronto could have ever elected a sociopath like Ford-- even if more people did vote against him than for him. The latest polling, though, shows him supremely unpopular and likely to be beaten by his old adversary Olivia Chow, currently clobbering him 56-36%. And that was even before this morning's new broke that he admits to knowing where the crack video is!

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford told senior aides not to worry about a video appearing to show him smoking crack cocaine because he knew where it was, sources told the Star.

Ford then blurted out the address of two 17th-floor units-- 1701 and 1703-- at a Dixon Rd. apartment complex, to the shock of staffers at a city hall meeting almost two weeks ago, the sources said.

The mayor cited “our contacts” as the source of his information, according to insiders familiar with the unusual May 17 session in his office.

Staffers were alarmed by the implication of hearing so precise a location, sources said.

Now, I hope no one misinterpreted what I said about conservatives to mean that all conservatives smoke crack. That's crazy! I just meant that all conservatives are liars and sociopaths and corrupt. That's all.

UPDATE: Has Ford's Whole Staff Walked Out On Him?

These crazy conservatives! Now the Star is reporting that two more staffers have resigned as of today-- so five so far this week. One was his executive assistant, Kia Nejatian, which probably means he might as well resign now and save Toronto any further agony over his mayoralty. Ford's brother, Doug, who has been an adjunct of his career, is now being shunned by Ontario Conservatives, who are hoping he disappears along with big brother asap. They used to call him a superstar... but that was almost a whole month ago. The Conservative leader in the provincial legislature, Jim Wilson, said that Doug Ford "is not our candidate. I don’t even know the guy... personally I’ve never even met him." Cold!

HAVE MEAN JEAN SCHMIDT AND KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON BEEN SMOKING OUT OF THE SAME PIPE?

Ever since late 2005 when KGO Radio in San Francisco reported that Mean Jean Schmidt was a crack whore, DWT's sometime art director, Adam Fox, has been haranguing me to mention that-- and her delusional claims that his former congressman Mark Foley proposed marriage to her-- every time I mention poor Mean Jean's name. He was even insisting I mention both things in the story Karen Allen did about Mean Jean slipping and falling into a pile of Michele Bachmann's puke at a GOP congressional St. Patrick's Day party.

Adam just called me breathlessly. Apparently he woke up before noon today and wasn't watching Fox "News" (two firsts for him). He claims he has definite proof that right-wing Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is also on crack and is demanding I investigate if she and Mean Jean have the same supplier or if Mean Jean has been selling crack to Hutchison.

"OK, Adam," I asked, "what's the proof?" He claims she was being interviewed on CNN and she said (and not as part of a comedy routine) "We are fighting for the freedom of our children more than any war we have ever been in." I had to agree that that is indeed strong circumstantial evidence that Hutchison is on crack, although we can't rule out the possibility that she was just smoking some between sessions and isn't actually an addict. In fact this could have been her first crack experience.

As for Mean Jean... who knows? She's certainly not admitting she's a crack whore, let alone announcing who her dealer is. One of my friends said it's more likely Hutchison gets whatever she's been smoking from ideological twin, psychopath Mark Steyn. You want proof? Is this just a coincidence?

"Someday soon, you might wake up to the call to prayer from a muezzin. Europeans already are...

"And liberals will still tell you that 'diversity is our strength'-- while Talibanic enforcers cruise Greenwich Village burning books and barber shops, the Supreme Court decides sharia law doesn’t violate the 'separation of church and state,' and the Hollywood Left decides to give up on gay rights in favor of the much safer charms of polygamy." 

CTBlogger has the video up.