Memo to the Toronto Star: Beware of Somalis Bearing Gifts

reply to post by JohnnyCanuck

I don't think this video is going to show up.

The mainstream media, including the Star, is what it is. The Star continues to pretend that 9/11 was an "outside" job, that Muammar Gaddafi was a menace to Libyans and most recently that Putin has sided with "thugs" in Syria.

Are those lies? I certainly don't think they are the truth. The Star has been on a vendetta against the Mayor of Toronto ever since he confounded them by winning election.

I'm not saying that the Star reporters are lying about the video. The public at large won't know that until they see the video, if that ever happens. I think what is going on is that the Star knows that the Mayor has a constituency in Toronto that is loyal to his agenda. They have decided to start running the next election campaign in Toronto by preceding it with months of negative coverage of the Mayor.

Torontonians are not dumb. They know what is going on.

Originally posted by ipsedixit
I think what is going on is that the Star knows that the Mayor has a constituency in Toronto that is loyal to his agenda. They have decided to start running the next election campaign in Toronto by preceding it with months of negative coverage of the Mayor.

Kind of Ford to cooperate by providing them with fodder, don't ya think?

reply to post by JohnnyCanuck

There was some spy in WW2, I think it was Cicero, who spied for the Nazis and was later reproached for having done so, but is supposed to have replied that he didn't think they would make good use of the material so it didn't really matter.

The situation with the Star is somewhat analogous. I think they are out of sync with Torontonians now. They've become too obviously political. People don't trust what they are saying anymore. People see through them.

Originally posted by ipsedixit
The situation with the Star is somewhat analogous. I think they are out of sync with Torontonians now. They've become too obviously political. People don't trust what they are saying anymore. People see through them.

They have a progressive editorial stance, yes. They are also conducting about the only investigative journalism in the City. People trust them just fine...it's Ford Nation living in denial.

The Sun is a total joke...and it's their 'are you still beating your wife?' brand of 'news' that got Ford elected.

But, hey...I can wait.

Originally posted by JohnnyCanuck
They have a progressive editorial stance, yes.

Do you mind elaborating on that a little? Do you mean constantly changing? Do you mean championing women's causes? Do you mean championing multiculturalism? "Progressive" is vague. Do you mean they believe in progress?

There are really only three options in life; progress, regress and stasis. Not only that but they all seem to happen at once.

Do you think a newspaper's editorial stance is important? Personally, I'd rather that they just get their facts straight.

They are also conducting about the only investigative journalism in the City.

That I doubt. Incidentally how is their investigation of the $247 million dollars of unaccounted for G8/G20 spending coming? I suspect that it is being "progressively" swept into the dustbin of journalistic history at the Star.

People trust them just fine...it's Ford Nation living in denial.

I think your imagination is running away with you here.

The Sun is a total joke...and it's their 'are you still beating your wife?' brand of 'news' that got Ford elected.

I don't like the Toronto Sun much myself but I don't think they elected Rob Ford.

But, hey...I can wait.

You keep repeating that. Are you looking for a job in a restaurant?

Originally posted by ipsedixit

But, hey...I can wait.

You keep repeating that. Are you looking for a job in a restaurant?

Geez... I hope that was just you trying to be humorous.

Rob Ford getting elected was the result of a lot of people living outside the City of Toronto proper... mostly suburban home owners tired of footing the bill for centre city services.

Originally posted by masqua

Originally posted by ipsedixit

But, hey...I can wait.

You keep repeating that. Are you looking for a job in a restaurant?

Geez... I hope that was just you trying to be humorous.

I was beginning to wonder if he had an ulterior motive for repeating the phrase. That was the first thing that came to mind.

Rob Ford getting elected was the result of a lot of people living outside the City of Toronto proper... mostly suburban home owners tired of footing the bill for centre city services.

I voted for Ford to come in and clean out the "Augean stables" at City Hall. The culture of entitlement that seemed to have gotten established there. I'm sure others had other reasons. I don't think the Toronto Sun was decisive but Sue-Ann Levy, one of the few things I do like about the Toronto Sun, was a persistent critic of City Hall spending habits and the feckless caprices of "His Blondness", Mayor Miller.

Also, related to my earlier post, I have to compliment the Star on it's accent on watchdog journalism. I just think they went overboard on this issue, the illegal commodity video. They may not be the only ones doing investigative journalism in Toronto, but it is definitely an important element in what they do and good on them for that.

Originally posted by ipsedixit

But, hey...I can wait.

You keep repeating that. Are you looking for a job in a restaurant?

Sorry to be obtuse. What I mean is that Ford's clown cavalcade is rapidly going south and the truth will emerge. I can wait for that...it's worth it.

Does that help?

reply to post by JohnnyCanuck

They have a progressive editorial stance, yes. They are also conducting about the only investigative journalism in the City. People trust them just fine...it's Ford Nation living in denial.

Globe and Mail did a research stint into Ford's family and their dealings...(or was it the Post?)

In any case, both papers I enjoy. The Star is sucking liberal nipple and the Sun is sucking the Conservative teet. It seems suiting they are opposites in name as well.

The Star, right before the Ford ████ story broke, they were following around the mayor putting magnets on cars. Now, the magnets had his number on them, and his name, and he left a meeting early to do this.

He already knew what was being said in the meeting though, because he spoke with the constituents that were in there.



His tact might be non-existent, but he's been a personal mayor to anyone who wished to speak with him. (Unless they are cyclists.)

And the Star was ripping him for the sake of ripping him and nothing more. Both Sun and Star are tabloid style papers IMO

Originally posted by JohnnyCanuck

Originally posted by ipsedixit

But, hey...I can wait.

You keep repeating that. Are you looking for a job in a restaurant?

Sorry to be obtuse. What I mean is that Ford's clown cavalcade is rapidly going south and the truth will emerge. I can wait for that...it's worth it.

Does that help?

That's what I thought the first time you said it.

Originally posted by ipsedixit

Originally posted by JohnnyCanuck

Originally posted by ipsedixit

But, hey...I can wait.

You keep repeating that. Are you looking for a job in a restaurant?

Sorry to be obtuse. What I mean is that Ford's clown cavalcade is rapidly going south and the truth will emerge. I can wait for that...it's worth it.

Does that help?

That's what I thought the first time you said it.

Then, please, don't be so impatient. This will all emerge in good time. It would appear that those Somalis bearing gifts are currently guests of the Crown. The depth of the scandal is pretty well known. Disclosure is merely a matter of witnesses vetted, investigations wrapped up and cases developed.

I can wait.

Originally posted by JohnnyCanuck
I can wait.

It's like an episode of Lost.

Once the police are involved in related actions, there is no longer any wiggle room. The facts will come out when charges are laid and the cases of charged individuals go to the courts.

Of course, that could take years.

Originally posted by masqua

Originally posted by JohnnyCanuck
I can wait.

It's like an episode of Lost.

Once the police are involved in related actions, there is no longer any wiggle room. The facts will come out when charges are laid and the cases of charged individuals go to the courts.

Of course, that could take years.

You want me to say it, right?
Naw...you can wait.

In the wake of the arrest of Dzhokar Tsarnaev in the United States in the matter of the Boston Marathon Bombings, Tsarnaev's Miranda rights were set aside so that statements he made in the hospital while under care for a gunshot wound could be used as evidence against him, anonymous officials confessed to the press on his behalf, to his guilt in the bombings and numerous other evidential details were leaked to the press to bolster the prosecution case.

If the Boston Globe had a special punctuation mark in their type setting repertoire to effect Tsarnaev's execution, I am sure that he would be dead already.

He has been tried in the press and found guilty. The chance of him ever getting a fair trial in an actual court of law in the United States is virtually nil.

The situation in Toronto contrasts very favorably with the one in Boston. Our hockey team may fold under pressure but our Police Chief, the redoubtable Bill Blair, does not.

This is the Chief who went public to tell police officers under his command to stop lying in court. This is the Chief who made a video to show his force what police hooliganism was and to tell them in no uncertain terms that he would not stand for it in officers wearing the uniform of the Toronto Metropolitan Police Department.

This is the Chief who refuses to dish the alleged dirt on Mayor Rob Ford and is currently experiencing the ire of the Toronto Star, a great newspaper that seems to be undergoing an identity crisis.

Am I a leader of the Fourth Estate or am I a "gawker" wannabe?

The editorial in today's Star is a classic mixed message. Let's look at it in detail.

www.thestar.com...< br />

Silence isn’t good enough — not on the subject of potential wrong-doing by municipal public officials. Yet silence is all that Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair is willing to provide.

Silence is the prudent course in these matters. When criminal conduct is in question it is much much better to let the courts deal with the matter.

The last thing Toronto needs is a police chief who meddles in politics.

We don't need a J. Edgar Hoover in Toronto, keeping files on politician's social lives and making timely leaks to the press to influence political matters.

Would the Star like to see a J. Edgar Hoover in Toronto?

Silence on whether police have obtained copies of a video allegedly showing Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack coc aine. Silence on whether raids targeting a gang of gun-smuggling drug dealers has revealed connections to the mayor’s office. Silence on whether there’s an investigation into the conduct of people in that office.


It’s telling that Blair has steadfastly refused to exonerate Ford by saying flat out that police have found no incriminating video, and no ties between the mayor’s office and drug dealers. But neither will the chief confirm any such link.

There are no two ways about it. The chief is not cooperating with the Star.

It has to be one or the other. At least Blair isn’t lying. But he is committing an injustice, either to the mayor or to residents of this city who are entitled to know of potential wrong-doing by elected officials serving in their name.

Let me give the Star some fatherly advice.

Categorically, without question, no matter who the politician is, there is potential for wrong doing.

It really does sound as if the Star expects the Chief to be the press spokesman for the department of pre-crime or potential crime.

The Star wants to publish allegations and "hearsay". They have gone out on a limb and done so but if they want these things backed up by sources and witnesses they should not be relying on the Police Chief as the default "source".

His job is too closely connected to the actual as opposed to literary administration of justice. In my opinion the police chief should not be a political player, like a "linebacker" for the press team.

This next bit is priceless and illustrates the Star's identity crisis beautifully.

They sound like one of those nitwit athletes in an interview who starts referring to himself in the third person because the ordinary clown that he is is so removed in reality from the "football persona" being interviewed.

It's as if OJ appeared on Dr. Phil giving America the textbook chapter and verse on how marital difficulties should be handled.

If police have not obtained copies of the controversial video in raids on the Dixon Rd. tower complex where the footage was reportedly made, then Blair should say so instead of leaving a cloud to linger unfairly over Ford. If no connections have been unearthed between the mayor’s office and drug dealers, it’s an outright injustice not to say so.

In the tabloid world that the Star now inhabits, apparently, there are no shades of jurisprudential grey, as the following quote indicates.

Blair’s excuse, that any comment could put his drug gang investigation at risk — even, apparently, a statement putting an innocent mayor in the clear — is frankly ridiculous.

I don't disagree in principle with what is expressed in the following quote, but I think the Star should defer to the Chief's judgement in the legal context . . . and in view of the last words in the paragraph, I ask myself if the Star has now decided to accuse the Chief of playing politics and covering up illegal activities by the Mayor.

If, on the other hand, a Ford video has been obtained by police, then it’s equally unfair to withhold it from the public. Torontonians have a right to know when elected officials, paid with their tax dollars and entrusted with civic leadership, have evidently gone astray. When people in authority possess such information and refuse to disclose it to the public, one way to explain it is through two ugly words: Cover up.

I hope they are not doing this but they have their journalistic necks stuck way out on this issue and I believe they are starting to panic in the belief that they might not get satisfaction in the form of confirmation of their allegations about the Mayor, even if police do lay charges in the case under investigation because the video, if it exists, might not be central to the criminal case and might therefore not even make it to court as an evidential exhibit.

The next bit is "amateur hour" at the Star in terms of covering legal matters and criminal investigations. They acknowledge that what they want the Chief to do is not universally, in the legal profession, accepted as proper procedure and then say categorically, his refusal to sail into contested waters is "wrong'.

I would say it is prudent.

In the criminal context, the Star seems to think that it would be possible to release the video, edited, to remove the faces of other figures possibly under investigation and to show only the face of Mayor Ford doing something illegal.

The Star seems to be completely oblivious to problems that might arise from doing that.

The only way that video can be released to the public, credibly, is unedited and complete. If the police have the alleged video and if it shows any sort of criminal activity, the police are absolutely correct in withholding it until admitted as evidence in a trial.

Any other course of action would be completely irresponsible.

Blair claims his silence is necessary, indeed required by law, and therefore doing otherwise would place “an important prosecution in jeopardy.” But, as the Star’s Liam Casey reports, three respected criminal lawyers contacted by this newspaper all say Blair could release the controversial video without breaking any law. Information obtained through wiretaps is sacrosanct, but not some piece of footage allegedly showing Ford sucking on a glass pipe.


Yes, some lawyers may disagree — learned squabbling is, after all, in the nature of the profession. But it’s fair to say that strong legal arguments exist allowing for release of the video should Blair want to go that route. Therefore, if police do have the video, it’s the chief’s choice not to reveal it. And if officers don’t possess the footage, it’s Blair’s choice not to absolve Ford of suspicion. Either way, the chief’s continued silence is wrong.

But eventually we get to the nub of the matter.

He has repeatedly assured the public that all relevant information from the investigation will eventually emerge in “a right way,” in court. But that’s not necessarily true.


A video showing Ford smoking Lord-knows-what, and allegedly making homophobic and racist comments, may be of no use in criminal court and may not factor in anyone’s defence or prosecution. But it would have immense value in the court of public opinion — the proper forum in which to judge a politician’s conduct and fitness for office. What is an election, after all, but the voice of public opinion?

The Star is afraid the alleged video is not going to come out, even if there is a court case involving the people alleged to have been present when it was allegedly made.

That is where the rubber hits the road for the Star. It appears that law enforcement in Toronto and the administration of justice are being asked to set aside their normal procedures to accomodate the Star's political agenda vis a vis the Mayor.

I think the Star should cool its jets and wait for the court case. There will be plenty of time to throw mud at the mayor before the next election.

Yet there is no guarantee that people will have the full story on this scandal, even when they go to the polls next year. The chief says he’s saying nothing in order to avoid damaging his case. But damage is being done, nonetheless, to this city’s reputation and ultimately that of the Toronto Police Service.

What the Star means by the above paragraph is that there is a possiblity that the slam dunk of a video showing the Mayor consuming an illegal commodity might not be forthcoming from the current legal processes before the next election.

They are right.

It is clear that the Star wants confirmation of its allegations regarding the Mayor and it wants them before the next election.

It is clear that the Star was thwarted by Mayor Ford's campaign in the last election and that they do not want to be thwarted in getting rid of this guy.

It is also clear that if the Police Chief does not bend to the will of the Toronto Star in this matter, he will be the next one to receive their undivided critical attention.

When those wielding public power, like Blair, appear to go out of their way to prevent revelations injurious to others in power, like Ford, the public can’t help but suspect motives beyond the people’s interest. That perception, however unfair, can be caustic to a police service.

Butter wouldn't melt in their mouths, down there at the Star, on this issue.

Blair needs to clear the air. If there’s no video of Ford allegedly smoking crack, then he should do the right thing and say so.

Children shouldn't play in traffic and Star editorial writers shouldn't be commenting on criminal investigations without making an effort to think very methodically about the problems detectives face in presenting evidence in court that will stick.

How would Blair know, categorically, if such a video DID NOT EXIST?

If police do have such a video in their possession, fairness demands that Blair release it and let all Toronto draw its own conclusions.

Chief Blair should continute to do his job as he has been doing it, with integrity, according to established procedures, which are designed to serve the administration of real justice in this city.

Originally posted by ipsedixit
Let me give the Star some fatherly advice...

May I anticipate your opinion piece or letter to the editor on the subject? If so, please link it here.

Originally posted by JohnnyCanuck

Originally posted by ipsedixit
Let me give the Star some fatherly advice...

May I anticipate your opinion piece or letter to the editor on the subject? If so, please link it here.

I just comment in this forum.

I think it'll get back to them.

reply to post by ipsedixit
So is it still the Star's fault if it is printed in the Sun?

Man stabbed over alleged Rob Ford crack video 620
Blood was spilled over the alleged Rob Ford crack coc aine video.

Mohamed Siad, 27, was stabbed while in custody because other gang members wrongly blamed him for the heat coming down on them in Project Traveller because of the alleged crack video, the Sun has learned. But Siad hasn’t stopped shopping around the video since being swept up on 25 charges as part of the Project Traveller investigation - he tried to use it as a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Sources told the Sun he was trying to cut a deal with the prosecution to hand over the tape in exchange for a plea bargain on his Project Traveller charges. According to sources, the prosecution refused any deal with Siad because they felt they couldn’t corroborate, barring a witness that was there at the time, that Ford was smoking crack in the video. Toronto Sun

ipsedixit

Originally posted by JohnnyCanuck
But, hey...I can wait.

You keep repeating that. Are you looking for a job in a restaurant?

Nope...but the wait was worth it. I can hardly wait for the book.

masqua
Once the police are involved in related actions, there is no longer any wiggle room.

Told ya so...

The news isn't even 5 hours old and it's become headlines on MSM websites across the nation already. The calls for Rob Ford to step down have begun and his recent picnic time with his friend Stephen Harper will be a further contentious topic of discussion at the CPC convention in Calgary starting tonight.

The timing of this news is remarkable, isn't it?

The chief of police was very circumspect in what he said about the video. He says it was consistent with what was described by the Star reporters who saw it and (although he didn't say so) their fellow "journalists" from gawker.com.

Yes. I'm bitter . . . but unbowed.

We still don't know what he was smoking. When I was younger I saw numerous murders committed on video at the Cineplex Odeon but all of them were just fakes.