Toronto Mayor Rob Ford accused of grabassing, letching on former election rival

Toronto's living shitshow of a mayor, Rob "Laughable Bumblefuck" Ford, is back in the headlines. Sarah Thomson, the publisher of The Women's Post, who ran against Ford in the last election, claims that he came onto her at a Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee affair, grabbing her ass and saying, "[she] should have been in Florida with him last week because his wife wasn't there." According to Thomson, Ford was drunk and "out of it." He appears worse for wear in a soon-to-be-infamous photo with Thomson, in which he sports a stained shirt and a rather unflattering expression.

"He grabbed my ass and I'm thinking what the heck is going on with him? I was so mad about it because this is somebody who knows how much I do for this city," Thomson told radio host John Moore.
She said she told Ford's staff to remove him from the room.
"I went to his handlers and said, 'Get him out of here,'" she said.
Thomson said Ford "completely crossed the line" Thursday night.
"He needs help if he's doing that to someone like me," she said.
"What he said to me and what he did is wrong."

Rob Ford blasted by Sarah Thomson for alleged crude comment [Don Peat/Toronto Sun]

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: canada • christ what an asshole • gender • politics • toronto

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greenberger

and this is on boing boing why…?
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1515015318 Missy Pants
  
  Why not?
  - Paul Renault
    
    It’s not happening in the ‘States, so therefore it can’t be news…or interesting, eh.
  - joeskunk
    
    I think he’s asking why it was posted on BoingBoing because this usually isn’t a blog for posting unverified political poop-flinging
    - Paul Renault
      
      The articles here are of what the editors find interesting.
      - http://www.facebook.com/kotobuya.prosper Kotobuya Prosper
        
        I’m just surprised the lady doesn’t have a ukelele!
      - http://daruiburns.tumblr.com/ Dlo Burns
        
        I’m working on a 3D printable model Drunken Action™ Rob Ford.
- http://profiles.google.com/andwalsh Andrew Walsh
  
  Because Cory was born in Toronto.
  - billstewart
    
    And if you follow Cory’s Twitter feed, you’ll see frequent rants about Mayor Ford.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  SRS MODERATOR ANNOUNCEMENT! SRSLY!!!
  
  If this post is the most recent one on the front page, close your browser. When you re-open it, you’ll find a world of new posts. We had a caching bug that refreshing/ reloading doesn’t affect.
- Marko Serafinowicz
  
  One of the largest (and kewlest) cities in North America has an absolute buffoon for a mayor who never stops topping himself in the idiocy department. It’s newsy.
  
  Though in this case, it looks rather more like Thomson has lost her marbles. Ford’s dumb, but he’s not quite that dumb. I mean, believe it or not, there are limits to the stupid depths to which he can plumb.
  
  Aren’t there?
  - EH
    
    Perhaps if he had a shred of competency, Toronto’s large and kewl might be negatively affected. The city could very well be better off as long as he doesn’t die and make room for someone with ambition.
  - C W
    
    “Ford’s dumb, but he’s not quite that dumb. I mean, believe it or not, there are limits to the stupid depths to which he can plumb.”
    
    Spoken like someone who truly hasn’t been paying attention.
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Jeff-Mclachlan/747758431 Jeff Mclachlan
    
    No. He’s a raging alcoholic with anger and impulse control issues who is possibly, and I’m not even kidding, slightly mentally challenged. There’s no bottom for this guy.
    - http://daruiburns.tumblr.com/ Dlo Burns
      
      Headline 10 months from now: Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has head stuck in a road-kill deer rib-cage; blames bicyclists.
  - foobar
    
    The man drives while trying to read.
    - http://twitter.com/leftnotracks Scott Falkner
      
      Pretending*
  - l337n00b
    
    Ass grabs don’t have a lot to do with smart, they have to do with impulse control and with a sense of entitlement. Since Ford has no impulse control at all and has a massive sense of entitlement, this is hardly a surprise.
    
    Also, if they did have something to do with smarts, it would be impossible for me to believe that Ford was not dumb enough. He’s really stone-stupid.
- Gilbert Wham
  
  Cos Cory’s from Toronto, and seems proud of the fact, and this guy is fucking up his hometown? Or, you know, just because?
- bardfinn
  
  Bumblefuck is an ongoing saga of “Dear God Why?”. Your only sin is in failing to assign the reaction to one level of meta lower.
- Pickleschlitz
  
  It’s here because it’s a really funny photo
- http://vinnietesla.com/ Vinnie Tesla
  
  You didn’t spot the banana in that photo?
Brainspore

The shirt discoloration and pained expression make a lot more sense when you see the photo taken moments later.
- Brainspore
  
  Of course I’m referring to this:
  - fuzzyfuzzyfungus
    
    That chestburster is getting out as fast as it can… ‘Take off and nuke the site from orbit’ isn’t just for humans anymore.
    - Brainspore
      
      And who can blame it after seeing the unspeakable horror that Rob Ford calls a “heart?”
      - fuzzyfuzzyfungus
        
        The Black Hole was a pretty bad movie…
toyg

Is “Rob Ford” canadian lingo for “Boris Eltsin”?
- http://twitter.com/incarnedine_v Dan Hibiki
  
  No… more like Diamond Joe Quimby, but dumber and angry all the time.
http://twitter.com/rvitelli Romeo Vitelli

Will Sarah Thomson become Canada’s Anita Hill?
Jonathan Colvin

He’s auditioning for Walking dead for the part “zombie who just ate three people”
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  …and discovered that he’s allergic to people. He looks like an ad for EpiPen.
  - Brainspore
    
    I figured he had just purloined some experimental gum from Wonka labs.
- Jake Rennie
  
  There will be a flashback of the well zombie showing how he came to be there.
  - IronEdithKidd
    
    The resemblance is uncanny.
marcus jaan grundahl

Rob Ford has scheduled a press conference to refute these scurrilous allegations at his van down by the river.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1515015318 Missy Pants

She did an awesome live chat with the Toronto Star earlier today.

http://www.scribblelive.com/Event/Live_interview_with_Sarah_Thomson

Also see this awesome list of his past debacles!
My fave being when he called 911 on Xena Warrier Princess (Mary Walsh), claiming it was dark and he was scared of someone in the bushes when she was filming it for TV and had a the cameras ON.

http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2013/03/08/rob_ford_still_misbehaving_a_look_at_past_controversies.html
schlocktober

So do they only have elections every 20 years or something?
- Heartfruit
  
  Every four years. Mayor Ford got the job in 2010 and it looks like we are stuck with him until 2014.
  - Supernumerary
    
    How did he get the gig? Was the voting population just unaware of what a mad asshat Ford is/was, or was there some kind of party divide which let him slip in unnoticed?
    - Cory Doctorow
      
      More than a decade ago, the conservative strongman premier of Ontario Mike Harris rammed “amalgamation” down the Toronto region’s throat. He amalgamated the City of Toronto with its suburban neighbours, giving the (conservative) burbs a majority over the (progressive) city, and letting people who don’t live in Toronto and largely hate and fear it run the town. Wait a decade and you get Rob Fucking Ford.
      - Supernumerary
        
        Thanks for the insight, Cory. So in light of what certainly seems like snowballing, are there any politicians (or even movements) in Ontario trying to effectively redistrict the area?
      - l337n00b
        
        I’m not going to say Cory is wrong, because if you look at the electoral map basically everyone inside the old city of Toronto voted for the next leading candidate while everyone in the amalgamated suburbs voted for Ford (not everyone, just 70%).
        
        But there is more to it than that. One might reasonably ask why people in Etobicoke, Scarborough and North York voted for Rob Ford. As supernumary said, were they unaware of what a mad asshat he was?
        
        It would be hard to be unaware. Rob Ford was off by a factor of 100 more than three times when talking about budget items during the campaign (no joke, he called a bike lane a “$6M bike lane”, it cost $60k to put in). He was an unrepentant drunk driver, justifying his arrest in Florida by saying he had only shared one bottle of wine with his wife before driving.
        
        I used to think that we elected incompetent fools because they were amiable. In Ford’s case he far from amiable, he’s a mean-spirited bully. He’s also not good looking (not that I would vote based on this, but if he were outrageously handsome we might blame his victory on that).
        
        Why did Ford get elected? Increasingly, it seems like the things that get people elected just have nothing to do with what we think should or even might get people elected.
yoshizl

Baron Harkonnen
joeskunk

Sarah Thomson’s groping claim ‘completely false’: Mayor Rob Ford

I know everybody wants to believe negative press on this guy, but it’s not sounding all that credible right now…
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1515015318 Missy Pants
  
  Why is it not credible? What I’ve been reading it sounds very credible.
  - joeskunk
    
    Well noone backs her story up, and several city council members are saying she said she was going to stage it before it happened. Did you actually read the article?
    - joeskunk
      
      Here’s some of it:
      
      ut Richmond Hill Councillor Carmine Perrelli – who was also at the party – told The Sun Friday that Thomson said to a group of a handful of people Thursday night that Ford grabbed her backside and she was going to “set him up” to get a picture for the next election.”(She said) I’m going to go upstairs, we’re going to set up the mayor, get a picture of his hand near your ass and then I’m going to use that picture in the next mayor’s election because I’m going to be the next mayor,” Perrelli said.
      
      “I was a little bit taken aback by the comment.”
      
      Perrelli said he warned Ford’s staff at the event.
      
      “I was in disbelief,” he said.
      
      Richmond Hill Councillor Greg Beros was also in the group conversation with Thomson and her friend also named Sarah.
      
      “She was very animated with the story … she said look. we need to go back upstairs and we need to stage the mayor’s hand rubbing up against your rear-end,” Beros said.
      
      “I said, ‘Sarah, that’s not a very good idea.’ ”
      
      Seeing today’s reports, Beros said he was “dumbfounded.”
      
      “I can’t believe someone would make an allegation like that knowing what I know,” he said.
      - C W
        
        Her telling them her sinister plan is much much less likely than this actually happening.
        
        He’s the prick with a credibility gap.
      - foobar
        
        If that were true, why would his security allow her near him? That doesn’t hold water.
      - chgoliz
        
        I just read a Facebook post from my SIL in which she claims she recently had the experience of following multiple welfare recipients out to the local store parking lot, and of course they all had brand new SUVs with Obama stickers.
        
        Thing is…I know her character, where she lives, the racial makeup of the area, and the types of vehicles owned due to socioeconomic reasons. Every word she claimed was her direct experience and thus the truth….wasn’t.
        
        I suspect the eyewitness you’re quoting is being equally deceitful, and for a similar reason.
- Brainspore
  
  How would he even know? By the looks of things he probably doesn’t even have a clear recollection of that evening.
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1515015318 Missy Pants
    
    There are rumours of “Jagger-bombs” being ordered.
- dragonfrog
  
  If anything, Rob Ford denying it makes it more believable – if he admitted to it, then I’d have my doubts.
  - joeskunk
    
    Yeah good point what about the others? The two directly involved (accuser and accusee) are politicians…
    - C W
      
      One has a history of being a complete sleazebucket.
  - l337n00b
    
    I would tend to think that Ford denying something would mean there will be a videotape of the event – that’s what has tended to happen in the past when he’s denied things.
http://twitter.com/jonhendry Jonathan W. Hendry

“”He needs help if he’s doing that to someone like me,” she said.”
Doesn’t make her sound so great either.
- http://twitter.com/cjporkchop cjporkchop
  
  “I was so mad about it because this is somebody who knows how much I do for this city”
  
  Of course, if he’d groped someone who hadn’t done anything for the city, it would have been perfectly fine!
- ohbejoyful
  
  >>”"He needs help if he’s doing that to someone like me,” she said.”
  
  Exactly. If he does shit like this to non-powerful women he does not need help?
LordInsidious

Can’t be true, Hutts are usually so well behaved in public…..
sam1148

Please oh God of Mods, please post a few more images before the weekend so we don’t have to look at that horrorshow on the page Saturday.
- bardfinn
  
  I’ll trade all my bOingKarma for a unicorn chaser.
- http://daruiburns.tumblr.com/ Dlo Burns
  
  Why? it’s just an overstuffed sausage.
http://twitter.com/meanidea len

I hate those things in Left 4 Dead.
Bradley Robinson

“He needs help if he’s doing that to someone like me.”
By that, I assume Sarah Thompson means “another human being”. Otherwise, she could use a little assistance as well.
- foobar
  
  Or maybe just a bit flustered after being pawed by an ogre.
jarrodhenry

Yeah, is it out of line to ask for a unicorn chaser on that photo? :P
http://twitter.com/bomcabedal Ilja Nieuwland

If anyone would’ve told us ten years ago we’d been pining for Mel…
Gerald Mander

What does she mean “to someone like me”? Something about her tone smells very wrong.
- Brainspore
  
  Depending on the tone in which it was delivered I suppose it could be either self-aggrandizing (“how DARE he do such a thing to a person of my stature!”) or self-deprecating (“…and I’m not even anything special to look at!”). Not sure which would be better/worse.
  - Snig
    
    Or she could have meant a past political opponent like herself.
    - monkey magic
      
      She could have been saying someone with enough power/influence to make a stink about it; versus an intern who will be bullied to shut up etc.
      - BunnyShank
        
        Yes, that’s what I thought too, that she was suspecting him of pervasive violence and possibly worse to those who had less power to be heard. But the lack of explicitness in the statement made me have to read between the lines.
  - Gerald Mander
    
    The thing is, the rhetorical question has an implication that there is someone he should do this to.
Marko Serafinowicz

Ford is a disaster and an embarrassment, but this just doesn’t pass the smell test. I mean, he’s a moron, and does ridiculous and idiotic things, but this beggars belief.

I think Thomson has gone off the deep end.
- orangedesperado
  
  Right because drunken buffoons never sexually harass anyone.
  
  He’s the mayor, with a long history of things like DUI, reading while driving, a strong sense of entitlement(what about the time he felt that he should be allowed to purchase the city owned parkland adjacent to his residence for reasons of “privacy”), insulting comments and attitudes, his refusal to participate in the giant Pride Parade, citing “family time at his cabin”, etc.etc..
  
  So this woman, with no apparent history of accusations against other politicians/people says that he did something inappropriate.
  
  So she must be lying ?
mikei

Worst. Mayor. Ever.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_BJ25CCEPCEC5N6Y4VFT2FJALEY WilliamS

There’s an old saying: “People get the sort of government they deserve.” So, citizens of Toronto, this slime bag says volumes about you.
- Marko Serafinowicz
  
  The voting was like a donut: the city voted against Ford, but the suburbs voted for him.
- C W
  
  “There’s an old saying: “People get the sort of government they deserve.”
  
  Let me make up a new one- “Victim blaming is for dickweasels”.
  - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
    
    Huh? The victims voted him as their mayor. Correct me if I’m wrong but it is their fault that he’s their mayor.
    - foobar
      
      No, Toronto voted against him, but Ontario forced them to give moronic yokels from lots of random places more votes than actual residents.
      - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
        
        In which case I stand corrected.
Will Cullen

I’m no fan of Ford (really, who can be), but jumping on unverified claims is ill-advised (okay, maybe not for the Sun, but I expect more from BoingBoing).

It’s quite possible Ford was set-up. All is not as (conveniently) as it seems: http://www.torontosun.com/2013/03/08/rob-ford-blasted-by-sarah-thomson-for-alleged-crude-comment
- foobar
  
  It’s possible this was just someone who happens to look exactly like Rob Ford, but it’s not likely.
auroraborealis

Just as an FYI – the Sun is one of three major papers in Toronto, and the most Rob Ford – sympathetic of them. I don’t want to say it’s a step above a tabloid rag, but… well, it has ‘sunshine girls’ as a regular feature. So, not the most woman-friendly of the bunch, and not usually what I’d solely rely on to decide upon an issue.

I’m surprised that Cory would link to the Sun article given his own implied politics, but two other takes on the incident can be found in the Toronto Star and Globe and Mail.
- chgoliz
  
  Maybe this article had the best photo, and he was trying to be nice.
  
  /s
- l337n00b
  
  “I don’t want to say it’s a step a above a tabloid rag,”
  
  That’s because, being a tabloid rag, it is not a step above one, right?
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=723148341 Lucy Gothro

This is too funny – I’m from Detroit, MI (which has basically been RAPED by the last mayoral administration) and live in Warren, just north of the city…Kwame Kilpatrick makes this guy look like a piker! ROFL!
- orangedesperado
  
  Lucy, please check your use of the term “raped”. It’s offensive and trivializes sexual assault.
http://twitter.com/ErnestValdemar Ernest Valdemar

I wish John Candy were around to lampoon this guy today. Ford is like a cross between Johnny LaRue and Mayor Tommy Shanks.
- Mope
  
  John Candy truly foresaw this period in Toronto’s history: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blcj-jEXfsA
- Halloween_Jack
  
  Candy would be in the best position to lampoon the guy, since he was Canadian, but Ford reminds me strongly of both Chris Farley in real life and the characters that Chris Farley played in the movies. There’s a picture of Farley somewhere where he relapsed immediately out of rehab and he’s drunk, stoned, sweating buckets, and almost passed out on his feet, and it looks very much like this one.
jarrodhenry

Not believing this story, but understanding that Ford is an idiot.

IF this really happened, why is she not pressing charges? Or even doing a civil suit? Anything? At all? I mean, where are the witnesses? The third parties? I read a CBC article that said this lady was planning a setup with her chief of staff.

This is not good for her.
- C W
  
  ” I read a CBC article that said this lady was planning a setup with her chief of staff”
  
  And was Ford the citation for this?
- chgoliz
  
  Most women don’t press charges after sexual assault. Same problem: no witnesses, people don’t believe her, etc.
  
  Pressing charges against a mayor, for groping? A civil suit? Please.
  
  The attitude you’ve exhibited here is a large part of the problem.
- l337n00b
  
  “Why is she not pressing charges?”
  
  A lot of people have been saying this and I find it incredible.
  
  First of all, she knows it’s a he said, she said situation. She knows it’s politically charged and people will say she’s just doing it for that reason.
  
  But secondly, maybe she just doesn’t feel like what happened was criminal. Sure, it matches the definition of sexual assault in the criminal code, but any time anyone touches you in an unwelcome way it is assault. Have you called the police every time in your life that someone you knew laid a hand on you?
  
  The criminal code is broadly worded enough that a woman who feels she has been assaulted can press charges, but that individuals are perfectly free to divide unwelcome touches into “criminal” and “just a jerk” as they see fit. It’s not up to you. The reaction of tell-people-what-a-jerk-he-was is just as valid as call-the-police.
  
  It’s the same people who complain that we’ve criminalized guys making passes at women who then say a woman lacks credibility if she does not accuse a man who made an unwelcome pass of criminal behaviour.
  - jarrodhenry
    
    I guess from my viewpoint, once , at a science fiction convention, I was sexually assaulted by someone else. From that date forward (when I found out that the person was involved in the rape of another), I’ve always wished I had pressed charges.
    
    And I had witnesses and everything. :P
    
    I guess I’m projecting my belief that Canada handles these things better than the US, and my own desire for people to be treated VERY harshly when they do this, onto this scenario.
    
    Yes, tell people what a jerk he is _IS_ a good reaction and understandable. But it’s also very clear that he needs to be removed from office.
    
    I’m still curious about the claims that she was trying to get him to put his hand on her butt for a photo. I mean, when I was assaulted, all I wanted to do was get the hell out of the room. I didn’t think about trying to get the person to do it to me again so I could snap a pic.
Mope

Ford does not have a pristine track record regarding his honesty during embarassing events.

Ford admits lying to media about drunken outburst

Last Updated:

Wednesday, May 3, 2006 | 10:47 AM ET

A Toronto city councillor who denied causing a drunken ruckus during a Maple Leafs hockey game last month has apologized for the incident, saying he “made a major mistake.”

Etobicoke Coun. Rob Ford says he is sorry about the incident and the fact he lied about it when confronted by a reporter from the National Post, three days after the incident.

He told the Post at the time he hadn’t been to a hockey game since Christmas. He continued his denials this week when the Toronto Star picked up the story.

“This is unbelievable,” he told the Star. “I wasn’t even at the game, so someone’s trying to do a real hatchet job on me, let me tell you.”

Only when the people he abused produced his business cards which he dropped in his drunken fury, did he apologize….

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2006/05/03/tor-ford060503.html
http://profiles.google.com/joshuabardwell Joshua Bardwell

Let me get this straight. On the one hand, we have a woman that most of us have never even heard of before. And on the other hand, we have Rob Ford. And the woman says that Rob Ford got drunk, groped her ass, and gave her a pickup line. And, given everything you know about the situation, you all come out of the woodwork to defend Rob Ford? So what you’re saying is that a woman of unknown character is less credible than Rob Ford?

Convince me this isn’t blatant sexism, okay?
- mikei
  
  Yes. The number of people willing to grant Ford any credibility has been boggling my mind as well.
- http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
  
  The funniest are the people that complain its all just unsupported rumours, and then cite another rumour as a defence.
- Marko Serafinowicz
  
  If you’ve heard of Rob Ford, how is it that you’ve never heard of Sarah Thomson? She ran against him in the last election.
  
  This is basically “he said she said.” I’m no fan of Rob Ford…scratch that, I fucking HATE Rob Ford…but I find it hard to believe that he would do something so unbelievably stupid, even for him.
  
  His opponents have been relentless in trying to get him removed from office. And while some of the tactics and charges I’ve agreed with, this smells to me like a case of temporary insanity on the part of Sarah Thomson. Caught up in the moment, caught up in her loathing of Rob Ford.
  
  It just seems like a more likely scenario to me. I mean, you’ve got witnesses who were next to them claiming that Ford never said that provocative stuff that Thomson claims he did. They were never alone together, after all.
  - dragonfrog
    
    I’ve heard of plenty of prominent government figures, but barely any of their defeated opponents – seeing as how they’re the ones who failed to gain prominence and whatnot.
  - http://twitter.com/a_w_young a_w_young
    
    I’m letting others decide what happened, if that can, before passing judgement. It’s too easy to throw Ford under the bus because he is an utterly disgusting man with weird ideas of how to run a city. He also looks completely sloshed in that picture and I think we’d find it easy to believe anyone making such allegations of anyone who was in Ford’s shoes in that photo.
  - IronEdithKidd
    
    I find it extremely easy to believe that a drunk man did something stupid.
Michael Polo

I’m so tired of the spectacle of it all.
http://twitter.com/Russell_Barth Russell Barth

http://twitpic.com/c9lz28
http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-McGarrity/525616570 Mike McGarrity

Vladimir Harkonnen??? I thought he died on Arrakis
marymargaret1

The dude ain’t got no eyeballs.
BijouxBoy

…er…so all this affrontery to Sarah Thomson…how does that fit with the chummy, snuggled-in-close pose, giggling? She appears to be having a fairly good time…mixed message, I guess.
- l337n00b
  
  Oh, of course, when a woman gets an unwelcome pass from a guy and then is asked to take what is basically a publicity photo with him, there’s a proper way for her to react and in improper one. Additionally, faking smiles for photographs is so unheard-of as to be very perplexing.
http://www.facebook.com/scott.fecher Scott Fecher

Are you sure you shouldn’t have said “came on to” instead of “came onto”? The latter sounds, well, the result of if the former was successful, if you know what I mean.