Rob Ford was Toronto's laughable, deplorable crack-addict mayor; his brother is a far-right Trump figure, running for Premier of Ontario (having stolen the party leadership through dirty tricks), who created literal fake news when he hired a pretend reporter to follow him on the campaign trail and ask him softball questions.

Doug Ford — alleged hashish kingpin and brother to the dead, racist, violent, sexist, rapey crackhead ex-Toronto-Mayor Rob Ford — stole the nomination to lead the Ontario Conservatives in an upcoming provincial race.

Doug Ford is the leader of the Ontario Provincial Party, a job he got through outright fraud; and it's only getting better: on Monday night, Ford — brother of the dead, disgraced, crack-addicted, racist, sexist, rapey, violent, lying former mayor of Toronto Rob Ford — showed up for a leadership debate in Toronto, cheered on by throngs of supporters, who turn out to have been paid actors pretending to be Conservatives.

Robyn Doolittle was the reporter who did most of the legwork investigating Toronto's crack-smoking mayor Rob Ford. But in the movie about his downfall, a man – a hotshot cub reporter to be played by Ben Platt – gets to be in her hotseat. — Read the rest

The publication ban has been lifted on beloved conservative hero and former mayor of Toronto Rob Ford smoking crack and babbling incoherently. He seems familiar with the use of a crack pipe.

From The Toronto Star:

Nothing apart from that illness — not documented substance abuse, or allegations of drunk driving, racism, homophobia or a lack of political control over council — kept Ford from mounting a real challenge to return to the mayor's chair in 2014.

My condolences to his family, who deserved a better person in their lives.

Rob Ford, the former Toronto mayor famous for political scandals and drug abuse, is dead at 46. He was suffering from pleomorphic liposarcoma, a rare form of cancer.

In 2013, the Star revealed that Ford had attended a military ball intoxicated and then that a cellphone video apparently showed him smoking crack.

The Toronto Library Board appointed by the disgraced former mayor Rob Ford has continued its programme of cutting library budgets, cutting way past the bone and threatening the Toronto public library system altogether.

David Nickle is a horror writer and a working journalist who covered Toronto City Hall during the Rob Ford years, an era in which the two professions effectively merged. Here, Nickle explains the events that led to his new short story collection Knife Fight and Other Struggles, which includes a tale of a larger-than-life mayor who settles interpersonal friction with, well, knife-fights.

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has been diagnosed with Liposarcoma, a rare form of cancer that grows in fat cells in deep soft tissue. — Read the rest

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has pulled out of his reelection race, citing an abdominal tumor for which he is receiving medical treatment. But that does not meant that the family Ford have fucked their last bumble: brother Doug Ford is to take his place on the ballot.

In theory, he's completed rehab, has stopped his substance abuse, and is ready to serve another term as mayor [Link] (via Accordion Guy)

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is out of rehab and back in the news, homophobing it up for the cameras and trying to get re-elected.

One year ago today

Gawker reporter claims to have seen video of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack: Gawker's John Cook was contacted by a tipster who offered to sell him a video of Toronto mayor Rob Ford smoking crack for more than $40K. — Read the rest

In the Toronto Star, Kevin Donovan reports a night in the life of Rob Ford, mayor of Toronto, shortly after an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel: Ford drives drunk, says fantastically racist things, buys drugs, beats up a friend of his, and then comes home and presents his friends to his wife, offering to let them have sex with her, saying that she lets him "f–k girls in front of her all the time… It's okay, my kids are not home." — Read the rest

The recording of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack (again) isn't the only recording to emerge of the mayor; he was also recorded making drunken, racist, homophobic, misogynist remarks at a bar where he was also abusive to the bartender and said rather revolting things about his wife. — Read the rest

Rob Ford has announced a "break" from his re-election campaign for mayor of Toronto, after a video of him smoking crack last weekend surfaced, being offered for sale by a drug-dealer for seven figures:

In one of the clips shown to The Globe and Mail on Wednesday, the mayor rapidly shifts his weight back and forth on the spot, talking into his cellphone and his right arm swinging at his side.

If Rob Ford's mayoralty had been a scripted reality show, it would have strained credulity, as this trenchant Marcus Gee column reminds us. Gee rounds up some of Ford's greatest hits — including a few I'd missed, like Ford's vote against naming a street after Nelson Mandela; his failed bid to distribute 10,000 Easter eggs at a parade where he wasn't welcome, his appointment of disgraced, drug abusing athlete Ben Johnson to his campaign team, and his profane rant against a security guard who denied him entry to a VIP lounge at a hockey game.

When Toronto Mayor Rob Ford was caught lying about smoking crack (and after months of smearing people who accused him of doing so as liars), he busted out the most weaselly, stupid excuse anyone had ever heard. To make it clear how unsuitable this level of discourse is in office, Central Fiction's produced this video in which a child deploys the Rob Ford defense about a cracked window. — Read the rest

If you've shaken your head in wonder that Canadians — gentle, sensible Canadians — had elected a drug-addicted, violent, lying buffoon to run its largest city, this excellent account of the rise of the Canadian neoliberal right by historian Paul Cohen is required reading. — Read the rest