Rob Ford Has Got to be Fucking Kidding

Ever notice how O.J Simpson never remarried? I wish my mayor was as bright as the erstwhile Juice

I spent a good chunk of last fall writing about Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's latest - and most egregious- fuck up, the conflict of interest beef that very nearly had his tubby ass shoved out of office with a frontloader.

Long story short; As a city councillor, Etobicoke Slim used city letterhead to hit up scumbag lobbyists for donations to his silly fucking football foundation. The city's integrity commissioner agreed and ordered Ford to return the money. City council later voted to so order the same.

After Ford became mayor, Council voted on the stupid fucking mess again. This time, Ford spoke and voted on the matter, prompting a guy named Paul Magder to sue Hizzoner under the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act. Madger won at trial and Ford was ordered removed from office. That decision was reversed on appeal in January.

As I said throughout this stupid nightmare, I didn't think that Hizzoner's speech and vote constituted enough of a conflict to warrant removal, but that I would take it. Nor was I expect Justice Hackland to rule the way that he did. However, when the initial ruling came down, I did expect it to be upheld by the Superior Court.

The worst and most unforgivable sin was the solicitation from lobbyists. Were I writing the laws, that would have resulted in immediate expulsion and lifetime disqualification from holding higher office.

I've said this dozens of times in this space: Lobbyists are the root of all evil in modern democracy. Both conservatives and liberals should feel this way because lobbies fuck up all of their dream policies. Conservatives can't get rational tax reform because of special interest loopholes, and liberals can't get much of anything without those same interests finding a way to pervert it into a means of self-enrichment.

I've spent years listening to assholes moan about the corrosive effect of money in politics, which is unmitigated bullshit. Don't believe me? Ask Karl Rove, who spent north of $200 million in the last U.S election and sending exactly no one to Washington. Or Sheldon Adelson, who did pretty much the same thing with the same result. Even with an awesomely stupid electorate, money didn't accomplish anything close to what it was supposed to.

The truly corrupting thing in politics is politicians or their staffers decamping to lucrative lobbying gigs. And it's shocking how often lobbyists wind up running campaigns, supposed because they're just that civic-minded.

Ford's a guy who made his name railing against the "gravy train." Lobbyists exist only to ensure that that train stops at their stations, and those of their well-heeled clients, as frequently as possible.

The fact that the solicitation of favors from lobbyists by elected officials in this province isn't a crime in this province is nothing less than stunning to me. And remember, l'affaire Ford began with solicitations to lobbyists.

So what's Etobicoke Slim been doing with his time lately?

Mayor Rob Ford is still asking registered lobbyists to donate to his football foundation — a practice that violates the city’s code of conduct and led to the court case that nearly forced him out of office.

Two lobbyists showed the Star fundraising letters Ford sent them within the past two months on behalf of the foundation. Ford hand-signed both letters.

Of course he is. Of fucking course he is.

Oh, it gets better, too.

Andy Manahan, executive director of the Residential and Civil Construction Alliance of Ontario, said he received a letter on Jan. 28 — only three days after Ford won his appeal in the conflict of interest saga that began with his decision to solicit donations from lobbyists in 2009. (Ed: emphasis mine)

(...)

Manahan said he has not met with Ford but has met with a member of his staff.

The second registered lobbyist asked not to be named for fear of alienating the Ford administration. He said, “I think it’s kind of suspicious. The only interactions I’ve had with him were on city business or as a lobbyist registrant.”

He added: “It goes back to: are you allowed to use names and contact information from business dealings to raise funds? Is that permitted? It sure seems strange.”

(...)

Ford also sent a fundraising letter in the past two months to a non-lobbyist who does business with the city and whose fortunes he could directly influence: Brian Ashton, president of the Canadian National Exhibition Association, which stages the annual fair.

Ashton received a letter from Ford on Jan. 10 — three days after Ford’s lawyer argued his appeal in court but before the judges released their decision.

As mayor, Ford is automatically a member of the association board; if Ashton seeks re-election, Ford could vote for or against him. Under its new governance model, the association will pay rent of more than $3 million to the city in 2013.

“It’s awkward because if you’re doing business with the city in any fashion, do you feel a sense of obligation?” said Ashton, a former centrist councillor who retired from politics in 2010. “If you don’t (donate), will that influence his impression or support of your organization?”

Ashton is currently urging council members not to put a casino at Exhibition Place. He said the fundraising letters are “unnerving” because “the Fords are very powerful in Toronto.”

“I just hope that (Rob Ford) separates the two and doesn’t allow fundraising efforts to influence decisions with respect to the casino or any other CNE business,” Ashton said

Ford's defenders, several of whom have been friendly to me and this blog, have suggested that what Ford's doing is okay because it's for charity and not for him. This is misguided on several counts.

First, the Rob Ford Football Foundation is something that he's repeatedly cited in his campaigns. Therefore, regardless of its intention or the work it does, it is a political tool of the mayor's.

Second, it's clearly very important to Ford personally. That being the case, what's the difference between his asking lobbyists for foundation donations or asking for them to buy him a car?

Third, the appearance of and potential for corruption remain. What if a lobbyist who gives receives decisions from the city favourable to his clients? What if a lobbyist who refuses doesn't?

Fourth, he's still using city time and resources to work for the Ford Foundation. Despite everything, he continues to insist on doing exactly what started all the chaos the city went through in the first place.

The mayor's hubris is undeniable, but it's hardly unbelievable. He's a guy who celebrates a near-death experience by standing on his roof in a lightning storm with a fucking golf club. It's amazing to watch, but it isn't especially surprising.

As much as his defenders like to suggest otherwise, the constant controversies surrounding Etobicoke Slim aren't inventions of the media or some dubious leftist cabal. Almost without exception, he's brought them on himself by his own conduct. His enemies haven't done themselves any favors by congregating around a certain law firm whose clients include a lobbyist who worked on the campaign of one of Ford's 2010 opponents, but almost everything that has happened to Ford in office is something that he's done to himself.

I'm something of a prophet, which I don't get recognized for enough. So I'll remind you of something I said in November.

Hoping that he changes his attitude is a fool's errand. Rob Ford's entire life is a textbook exercise in entitlement. Since he inherited his money and his political career, there's no reason to believe that he's going to re-evaluate his character at this late date. After his near-constant, self-inflicted humiliations, he still blames everyone but himself.

It took Hizzoner three days after only barely surviving in office to return to the behaviour that nearly cost him his job in the first place. Three days. Christ, Toronto doesn't have a respected statesman running our affairs, we elected Lindsay Lohan.

And you know what? We're almost certainly going to get another six years of this.

Because liberals insist on being liberals, they'll do what the did last time, which is run a dozen different candidates against Ford. Ford's political polling floor seems to be about 25%. If a dead child prostitute is found in Rob's bed, a quarter of the electorate will believe that George Smitherman put her there and vote accordingly. He could lose half of his 2010 vote and still conceivably have a path to victory.

The only way that Rob Ford is going anywhere in 2014 is if a solid, adult conservative challenges him. But conservatives tend to be disciplined and the fear that challenging Ford would only elect Olivia Chow would stop most of them from doing it.

You think Ford is going to grow the fuck up after he's re-elected? I don't. He's already busy laying the groundwork for the next half-dozen scandals that will prevent him from doing anything at all as mayor.

And when conservatism is wiped out once and for all in this city, conservatives will have no one to blame but themselves for having supported that dickhead in the first place.

More likely, he'll create a Watergate-sized scandal that the courts and Council simply can't ignore.

Free Speech for Me, But Not for Thee: How Irony Escaped Aaron Walker

But for one post, I've stayed away from the strange and stupid saga of Aaron Walker (aka Worthing) because not only was it a dumb battle without any "good guys" in it, it also got powerfully tedious. Any self-respecting person can only listen to so many people engage in so much self-pity and retarded bravado before you throw up your hands and hope that everyone involved gets stomach cancer. I reached that point about 15 minutes after the whole dumb spectacle went viral.

Don't get me wrong, I wanted to support Walker, but I developed a powerful allergy to anyone who wants to take their blog pissing matches to the courts years ago. I don't care if they're on the left or the right. It's a giant waste of time and resources that can be better spent on other, more pressing matters.

For those of you who blessedly missed the story, here's a brief recap.

Once upon a time there was an adjudicated bomber who ran a couple of non-profit political groups* named Brett Kimberlin. A guy named Seth Allen wrote a bunch of posts that nobody read regarding Kimberlin's activities, so Kimberlin sued him for libel.

Mr. Walker, a self-described Virginia lawyer, acting under an alias and despite not being a member of the Maryland bar, started offering Allen legal advice. Walker maintains that he wasn't Allen's lawyer, although the former's e-mails to the latter reference "privilege" at least once, and maybe more often.

Anyhow, Kimberlin grew mighty interested in who this "Aaron Worthing" was. When he learned Walker's identity, he also connected it to the Everybody Draw Muhammad blog (which has since been scrubbed and made private.) That blog is key here, as you will see shortly.

On Everybody Draw Muhammad, Walker repeatedly asserted that certain segments of the Muslim population are violent psychopaths, which even most Muslims would agree with. Walker went further than that. From what he thought was the safety of an assumed name, he invited that violence to visit him personally and implored others to do the same under their real names. Of course, he didn't bother telling his readers and contributors that he was using a pseudonym because, to hear him tell it, he's more afraid of wife than he is of violently psychotic Muslims.

When Kimberlin found out who Walker was, Walker went to his employers and explained everything, including Everybody Draw Muhammad. Unsurprisingly, Professional Healthcare Resources, Inc. took a dim view of Worthing's online activities and shitcanned him, although they officially told him that he was being booted for (literally) sloppy lawyering.

But it would take almost a year for anyone to find that out. In the interim, Walker launched a legal and public relations jihad, insisting that Kimberlin cost him his job, although no evidence of that exists. In their e-mail terminating his employment (and, unfortunately, that of his wife) PHRI doesn't mention Kimberlin contacting them. They do, however, go on at some length about the security issues created by Everybody Draw Muhammad and his invitation to violence therein.

Walker's suits against Kimberlin (and Neal Rauhauser, Ron Byneart and at least one John Doe) have been thrown out by two courts of competent jurisdiction in the last five weeks.

The (almost certainly illegal or unethical) discovery leak that revealed the true reasons behind Aaron Walker's dismissal should have been enough for any honest conservative to withdraw their support from him. He was deliberately misleading in his public presentation of the facts and he continues to raise money from same. You can assume whatever you will about the motives of those who continue to stand behind him.

But it is that clear from the very first days of Everybody Draw Muhammad that he has a history of actively lying to his readers and not admitting it until he has no other choice. If you want to be a willing dupe for that, feel free. If you want to finance it, you're probably better off without the money, anyways.

Even before his lawsuits were dismissed as political nonsense and vindictive bullshit from someone that could only be charitably be described as a half-wit with honesty issues, Walker had the temerity to accuse PHRI's attorney of lying about his dismissal, which I'm sure will come back to haunt him, both civilly and before the Virginia Bar. If any one thing in the last year has made Aaron Walker unemployable in the legal profession, it's that. Lawyers blatantly calling other lawyers liars in public simply isn't done. That tweet was the final nail in his professional coffin.

All things being equal, I wouldn't care all that much if it ended there. Blowhards destroy themselves on the Internet with some regularity, and the people who ally themselves with Breitbart.com tend to do it more regularly than most. This is a story where everyone involved is someone that I wouldn't be proud to know.  It's one of those rare stories, like Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, where everyone's a Bad Guy.

I would have been thrilled to forget that I ever wasted seven months of my time following such a stupid story. Really, I would have.

But then Walker had to post this just as quickly as he could.

That's right. A guy who just wasted a year of everybody's time, energy and money fighting for his right not to be fired for his online activities ..... is calling for someone to be fired for his online activities.

Firstly, Walker proves that he's either an idiot or a dishonest hack by saying of Professor Loomis' "head on a stick" comment;

By the way, we are told that this bit about “head on a stick” could not possibly be an actionable threat, because it is a metaphor. Right, because you can never threaten a person in figurative language. If a Mafioso says “pay your protection money or you will sleep with the fishes,” these legal geniuses assure us, that is not a threat.

Which is my sarcastic way of pointing out that you can indeed threaten a person with a metaphor.

No, the when the Mafia said "Tonight, you sleep with the fishes," they meant exactly that. It's also where the phrase "concrete shoes" comes from. They would actually encase your feet in concrete and dump you in the water, thereby ensuring that you slept with the fishes. If you know anything at all about Mafia history or pop culture, which Walker apparently doesn't, you know it isn't a metaphor.

So far as I know, no one in western civilization has had their head  put on their stick as political statement since the nineteenth century. While it's a common figure of speech, it decidedly doesn't happen very often in modern America.

Of course, I'm being charitable in assuming that Aaron doesn't know that. I could just as easily say that he's a dishonest hack.

The real and clear reason, by the way, that this is not an actionable threat is because it was not plainly communicated to Mr. LaPierre nor was it plainly directed at being communicated to him. What this is, then, at worst, is ruminating about murdering a person, which can be rightfully a concern for law enforcement but it is not a threat.

(Ken at Popehat is also correct to say that it is not a threat if it is not meant seriously, but how does he know that he isn’t serious? I am sure he doesn’t literally want to put LaPierre’s head on a stick, but I don’t and I won’t speculate about whether Loomis actually wants to kill him.)

Wow. It does seem unreasonable to me to think that Walker's first remedy to questionable speech is to refer it the police, if not the speaker's employers, rather than the speaker himself. That kind of puts his silly fucking lawsuit in a new light, doesn't it?

And it gets better. Oh, it gets so much better.

Since Loomis said these things, there are some people who have argued that he should be fired from his university job and there are good people such as Ken in the piece I have cited, Adler over at Volokh, and eight professors posting collectively at Crooked Timber.

Now certainly if Loomis had merely said, “I hate the NRA.” Or even “the NRA’s policies are dangerous and contributed to Friday’s massacre,” I would agree with my distinguished colleagues and say he should face no retaliation at his job. I mean, I of all people don’t believe that as a rule people should be fired from their jobs for what they say on their off time. But they are missing (or in Ken’s case failing to grasp the importance of) the real problem in Loomis’ commentary:

Yes, respected lawyers who weren't fired from their jobs because of their dishonest and sloppy blogs tend not to support the firing of Erik Loomis. Whatever could these professionally respected and employed lawyers and scholars be missing that Aaron isn't?

The Problem is Fascism.

Oh. Who knew?

You see the real reason why Loomis should be fired—or at the very least investigated for what he said—is that his comments are fascist. Bear in mind, I define fascism as nothing more than a lack of belief in democracy itself.*

Walker published a footnote giving his preferred definition of fascism, which is hilarious**. I'm not going to reprint it, but if you're amused by the abuse of the English language to advance political bullshit, I couldn't encourage you to read it enough.

People like Aaron (and many others on the modern right) use the word fascism interchangeably with communism and socialism. They're either wrong or lying. Fascism was primarily an economic system that married government with private business, ensuring the success of both. Fascism was actually quite popular with the American right in the 1930s precisely because it was seen as an antidote to communism.

It takes a special kind of dickhead to equate fascism  "as nothing more than a lack of belief in democracy itself." There are all kinds of non-fascist systems of government that do that.

Consider for instance this comment by Loomis:

You are goddamn right we should politicize this tragedy. F__k the NRA. Wayne LaPierre should be in prison. [Cursing censored by me.]

So he believes that LaPierre should be imprisoned for what exactly? To the best of my knowledge, LaPierre has broken no laws. All he has done is advocate for a policy—reduced restrictions on gun ownership—that Loomis disagrees with. Advocacy of the criminalization of opinions you don’t agree with is the very essence of fascism. He repeats that thought several times:

Wayne LaPierre is a criminal and should be in prison for complicity with murder. 27 counts.—

Dear rightwingers, to be clear, I don't want to see Wayne LaPierre dead. I want to see him in prison for the rest of his life. #nraterrorism

Further he advocates that the NRA and its leaders be treated as terrorists, again for expressing an opinion he doesn’t agree with.

Can we define NRA membership dues as contributing to a terrorist organization?

Larry Pratt and the group Gun Owners of America are terrorists and should be dealt with as such.

The right-wing intimidation campaign against me for saying the NRA was a terrorist organization continues. Will not succeed.

I bet terrorist NRA head Wayne LaPierre will sleep well tonight.— [on the night of the Newtown massacre.]

 

Um, yikes! There are any number of things that the modern right wants harsh criminal penalties for that didn't used to be crimes. Material support for terrorism is just one of them. Republican congressman Peter King remains a proud supporter of what the Irish Republican Army used to do, and there's no shortage of Republican assholes who successfully lobbied to de-list the MEK as terrorists because they happen to be  terrorists they see them as our terrorists, so we call them "freedom fighters" instead.

Now this is not to say that this is incitement within the meaning of the Brandenburg standard (of which I am safely considered an expert) and thus can be criminalized or otherwise prohibited. But as a history professor wrote, “such language can embolden the crazy[.]” And who wrote that? Erik Loomis, when arguing that somehow targets on a map caused the Giffords shooting. What Loomis has been doing is a tad worse than that. So, add the charge of hypocrisy to the bill of particulars against this professor.

And even then, ordinarily, this doesn’t justify a person being fired from their job. Whether a person is a fascist or not, a brownshirt in waiting, is of no rightful concern to his employer if he was a bagger at a grocery store, a garbage man, a lawyer, a businessman, etc.

But he is a professor in a University. Further, it is a state university. And that is a problem.

That's top to bottom nonsense. Walker successfully argued Brandenburg against a peace order (which doesn't require a lawyer) and he did so after losing at his initial hearing. That does not an "expert" make, any more than having a speeding ticket overturned makes you an expert in traffic law.

What Walker is suggesting is that some people have greater free speech rights in their private lives based solely on who their employer is. If you teach at a state school, according to Walker, you had better watch what you say!

Academic Freedom Applies to Students, too.

His students have as much of a right to express differing views, to enjoy freedom of inquiry, and so on, as he does. I mean a professor can say to a student, “I am teaching right now, so kindly shut up.” That is okay. Time, place and manner restrictions on student expression are fully justified or else teachers wouldn’t be able to teach.

But, a student should not face discrimination because his views—when expressed at appropriate times—differ from his professor. This is the ideal in the setting of a private university, but it is mandatory in a public one. After all, this professor’s actions are the actions of the state and thus academic freedom is not merely some ideal, but a constitutional command under the First Amendment (as incorporated by the Fourteenth).

And bear in mind I am not saying that Loomis is not entitled to believe what he believes, even passionately so. If he merely came on twitter and said he thought assault weapons should be banned, I wouldn’t be talking about either firing or seriously investigating him due to his words.

But he has gone further than that. He has advocated prison for those he disagreed with. He advocated designating political opponents as terrorists, which could bring consequences ranging from the freezing of funds to being killed summarily. And he has stirred up private violence against those who disagrees with him.

Do you think he can treat his students who disagree with him fairly?

Simply put, that's retarded, and I'm sure that Walker would agree if that standard were applied to him.

As a member of the Virginia Bar and an Officer of the Court,  it could be suggested that Aaron Walker's public positions should disqualify him from any number of legal issues. And I'm not arguing that, he is.

Bar associations have a monopoly granted under state power. If Erik Loomis is to be judged by a special standard because he teaches for the state, shouldn't Aaron Walker, as well? Given his publicly stated positions on any number issues, would it be reasonable to question Walker's ability to represent clients using Walker's own test?

Again, this is a guy, Professor Loomis, who said gun supporters should be imprisoned, treated as terrorists (which might be interpreted as endorsing their summary execution) and has whipped up violence against those who are pro-gun-choice. Even if you call that hyperbole, it doesn’t bode well for the possibility of an open and respectful discussion of gun rights in his class. If a student expresses a pro-gun-choice view on an exam will that student’s grade be affected by this professor’s unhinged hatred of this position?

Actually, that's not true. Loomis didn't say that "gun supporters should be imprisoned." He said that Wayne LaPierre should be. I disagree with that, but I'm not going to dishonestly manipulate what Loomis actually said, or cost him his job. And it was Walker himself who endorsed summary execution of terrorists and then imparted that motive on Loomis in regards to gun rights supporters, which goes further to Walker's record of honesty.

Walker also provides no proof that Loomis would treat anti-gun students unfairly. He cites no complaints or university censures. He just assumes that Loomis will be unfair, given his public record.

Who can say that Walker, as a lawyer, won't do exactly the same thing, absent any evidence that he won't? And I don't think that it's a huge stretch to suggest that the function of an attorney is as important, or more so, than that of a university professor. A lawyer's clients are at least as pliable, if not more so, than college kids.

I don't endorse applying that test, he does. And it takes a special kind of stupid for someone who lost his job due entirely to his online activities to do that.

Not three weeks after Aaron Walker's "free speech crusade" was throw out of court, he's parading around online demanding that other people suffer the same fate that he did. Hopefully, they have better repesentation than he did at trial.

If you want to continue financially supporting Aaron Walker, feel free. There have been things said about fools and their money, after all.

But please don't pretend that you're supporting free speech. You'll just look ridiculous.


As I said in my last post on this subject, if Mr. Walker wants to respond to anything that I've written here, I will give him all the space that he desires to do so, unedited and without unnecessary commentary on my part. Any counter-commentary (other than I deem necessary to protect my own legal interests) will be limited to the comments.

Should Mr. Walker feel that I have in way breached that commitment, he will of course be free to call me out for it on his presumably more widely-read blog.

If I have made errors of fact that are not supported by the available evidence, I will be more than happy to correct them. Having said that, "Because I said so" does not meet my standard of available evidence, particularly given the joint court dismissals.

Would Mr. Walker extend that courtesy to anyone else? There's no evidence that he would. But I am. If I'm going to make an error in this case, it'll be by being overly air to everyone. Except in the most egregious circumstances, I don't edit or delete comments. I think I've done it five times in almost ten years.

He can contact me at skippystalinATgmail.COM. 




*As I've said in my previous post, I don't think that anyone convicted of a crime should be allowed under the tax code to run a non-profit. If felons can lose their voting and gun rights, surely they can be stopped from playing politics at the taxpayers expense, too.

By the same token, that standard shouldn't apply to Kimberlin if it doesn't apply to Ali Akbar, whose crimes involve the theft of actual money. You can't deny a violent  psychopath his rights while granting them to an convicted thief without looking like a goddamned shill.

** Walker cites as a source Jonah Goldberg, who sees fascism completely as a creation of the left, despite an overwhelming amount of evidence to the contrary. The left already had their their totalitarian movement in communism. Fascism was a reaction on the right to that. As shocking as it may seem to those who buy into "left-wing fascist" blogosphere propaganda, the original fascist powers; Spain, Italy and Germany were vehemently anti-communist.

The United States itself allied itself with arguably fascist regimes in Central and South America, and Southeast Asia during the Cold War in the name of anti-Communism. They were just careful about not calling them that. Historical context is sort of important when throwing about phrases like "fascist."

Liberals can be extraordinarily totalitarian when they put their minds to it, but they aren't fascist by definition. When you hear conservatives describe then that way, that should be a giant red flag that they're dishonest, stupid, or working for Breitbart.com.

The American Way of Death

When tragedy strikes, most people think that the natural reaction is do something, which isn't exactly true. If you've been following the mainstream media and the blogosphere since Friday morning, you might have noticed that the proper reaction in the face of tragedy is to get stupid.

Awesome stupidity, so powerful that it seemingly has its own gravitational pull, has been the order of the day, as it usually is.

The ignorance comes in two distinct styles. The first is liberals, who want the government to ban and/or restrict access to firearms. The second is conservatives, who want the government to ban and/or restrict access to everything else. From what I've seen since Friday, both groups seem to agree that some government infringement of freedom is necessary.

I'm not a gun nut. The fact is that I don't think about them all that much. However, I don't think that objects, in and of themselves, are inherently criminal. I feel the same way about guns that I do about drugs. Their possession should not be a criminal offense, but their misuse should be. Simply put, guns are tools, and there is currently no shortage of laws prohibiting shooting someone in the head.

Even if you were to somehow transcend the immutable laws of American gun politics and enact a total ban, you would still accomplish next to nothing. This is because you would still have over three hundred million existing American guns in circulation; enough for every man, woman and child in the United States for generations to come.

Just as the U.S government is unequal to the task of constitutionally rounding up and deporting 11 million illegal aliens, it will not effectively be able to collect and dispose of 300 million firearms. Even if the Second Amendment were to magically vanish overnight, the rest of the Bill of Rights would preclude such an effort. Guns, as you might have noticed, are considerably smaller and easier to hide than Mexicans. Getting rid of the weapons that are already out there would require nothing less than martial law, and I'm not convinced that would be very effective.

There are already more than enough weapons to ensure that what we saw in Newtown, Connecticut on Friday will happen again, and no amount of liberal wishful thinking or half-baked policy prescriptions is going to change that. Criminals are deservedly famous for breaking the law and the mentally ill are renowned for doing weird things.

Conservatives are even more disappointing. Their big idea is a return to involuntary civil commitment. The only problem with that is the paucity of evidence suggesting that it would have prevented any of the mass shootings that we've seen in the last several years. Very few of the perpetrators, if any, have histories that would meet any plausible standard for long-term commitment.

This kind of thinking reveals the hypocrisy of modern conservatives. The very people who barely trust the government to deliver the mail, let alone levy and collect taxes, want to make it easy to relieve the citizenry of their basic freedoms.

Even with the high standards the Constitution requires for criminal conviction, hundreds of people have been exonerated and released from unjust incarceration. If you operate from the premise that civil commitment requires a much lower due process standard (and some believe there should be no such standard at all,) how great is the risk for misuse of the procedure is there? There is, after all, a reason that commitments were curtailed in the first place. Does anyone trust the government to do the right thing all the time, even knowing what we do about the imperfect criminal justice system?

Like it or not, the mentally ill have the same rights you and I do, and limiting them under the color of law should be no easy task. There is no "unless you're nuts" clause in the Constitution, especially in the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments. I checked. If you want to argue that commitment is a civil action, then the Seventh Amendment should apply.

The conservative consensus seems to be, "So long as no one touches my guns, I don't care about anyone else's rights, especially lunatics." That goes a long way in demonstrating just how committed to freedom these people are. Liberals generally believe that the rights of the people are subservient to the duties of government or the needs of society. Conservatives aren't supposed to.

On the Sunday shows this morning, both Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and outgoing Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CN) went to the same stupid stand-by that morons usually do, television, movies and video games.

Firstly, this is (and excuse the pun) a weapons-grade stupid argument, for which there is little if any research to back it up. Second, it presumes that the First Amendment is somehow less inviolate than the Second, which is moronic and dangerous.

Even if you can prove that media makes the crazy even crazier, we do not order our society based on what certain stimuli is going to cause the mentally ill to do, any more than we do for children. Furthermore, I barely trust the government to deliver the mail, which presumes that the role of media watchdog is well beyond its capabilities, to say nothing of its enumerated powers in a constitutional republic.

If, as Lieberman suggests, "violence in entertainment is 'a causative factor' leading to incidences of violence," why is said violence centered primarily in the United States? Entertainment and culture is one of America's leading exports, but only Americans are violently set off by it with any regularity.

Conservative voices have spent the last few days pointing to mass shootings in Norway, Scotland and Australia to make their case that gun availability isn't a factor in the violence. And they're largely right.

But what they don't seem as enthusiastic about pointing out is that this is the fourth such shooting in the United States in the last six months. There was one in Portland, Oregon as recently as Tuesday. In other countries, they happen maybe once in a generation, but there have been two in America in the last five days.

In a country of 33 million, 1,927,693 Canadians have valid firearms licenses, meaning that about one in every sixteen of us is armed. If you assume that there are hundreds of thousands of unlicensed and illegally imported weapons from the United States here, Canada has no shortage of guns. Canadians also consume precisely the same entertainment Americans do.

Yet we don't have the issue with mass shootings that the United States does. Neither does any other industrialized nation with available weaponry. An American citizen is probably more likely to be murdered within the territorial United States than in one of the many war zones where U.S troops are deployed.

Stringent gun control in Canada is relatively recent thing that came with mass urbanization. The same is probably true of Australia. Like the U.S, both countries were "frontier nations." But of the three countries, it was only in the United States that murder rates were very high. In an era long before assault weapons and video games, the American people collectively decided that they enjoyed killing one another. And if they didn't have guns, they'd use knives or even really big sticks.

The conservative and liberal arguments about firearms availability, mental health and culture aren't borne out by the statistics in the rest of the world. But American homicide rates are utterly out of whack with the rest of the industrialized world. You have to go to the Third World or active war zones to find numbers that are anywhere close to America's.

The problem isn't with guns, mental health or culture. It's a problem with Americans. Unless and until that's addressed, nothing else is going to matter. And I'm not at all sure that's something that government can address.

The End of DOMA?

The U.S Supreme Court announced late last week that it would hear two gay marriage cases this term, the appeal of the California Proposition 8 case and a challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA.)

I'm actually surprised that DOMA, which was passed in 1996, has survived as long as it has. Yes, I know that both houses of Congress passed it, but Congress passes unconstitutional nonsense all the time, which is sort of why the Supreme Court exists at all. And please don't remind me that President Clinton signed it. As subsequent events conclusively demonstrated, few marriages were more in need of defending than Bill Clinton's.

For my newer readers, I'll quickly explain my views on same-sex marriage.

I have a basic test that I apply to any law, proposed or already in effect. That is "Is this something that a reasonable adult should give a shit about?" If the answer is no, there's really no reason that the government should give a shit about it, either. In such cases, I support giving the people the right to do whatever they please.

Then I decide whether the law is constitutional. Even the best law ever is a giant waste of everybody's time if it doesn't conform with the supreme law of the land.

As far as gay marriage goes, there is no reason for the government, especially the federal government, to give a shit. If "the family" needs the force of the feds to defend it, it's already doomed. The government did a remarkably poor job in defending the World Trade Center, which was at least a physical thing in a specific location, two things "the family" decidedly is not.

Having said that, I do understand that homo hitchery might offend your religious sensibilities. Too bad. Just as is true with the family, the federal government doesn't exist to defend your personal superstitions. Besides, the same government that can protect your religious beliefs can also limit them. Moreover, if you need curs like your average politician to affirm your spirituality, you're probably going to hell, anyway.

Religion is a deeply personal thing and government is about as impersonal something can get. Nothing good ever comes from intermingling the two. You know when I'll be okay with the government policing marriage? When the states are allowed to resume burning witches.

DOMA is unconstitutional on its face and no one has ever seriously argued that it isn't. Article IV, Section of the Constitution is better known as the Full Faith and Credit Clause, which compels the states (as well as the federal government) to  respect the "public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state."

Since marriage is a public act and often a judicial proceeding, DOMA couldn't be more clearly in violation of the Full Faith and Credit Clause.

Through DOMA, the federal government also violates the "due process" clause of the Fifth Amendment, since it voids liberty granted by the state in any other state or before the federal government without due process of law.

Marriage is also a public act, with very specific government benefits, primarily - although not exclusively - through the tax code. When the federal government limits those benefits to a certain class of citizens, absent a compelling state interest, it violates the "equal protection" clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, of which the language is very clear.

If corporations and George W. Bush's first presidential campaign meet the definition of "legal persons" under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, it's very difficult to rationally argue that homosexuals don't. That's just a matter of elementary logic.

The Supreme Court has also ruled repeatedly that marriage is a "fundamental right," that the states and Congress cannot deny, even to prison inmates. I suppose that you can argue that prisoners awaiting execution enjoy greater fundamental rights than gays do, but it would be an affront to both common decency and common sense.

You know who, first and foremost, knew that there were severe constitutional issues with DOMA? The people who oppose gay marriage. That's why they've been pressing for a constitutional amendment since 2004.

DOMA is a dead issue constitutionally, unless certain of the justices defy logic, precedent and the clear language of the Constitution to rule otherwise.

Of the two cases coming before the Court, Hollingsworth v. Perry (the Prop 8 case) is the more likely of the two to be ruled upon narrowly, based entirely on the specific circumstances in California. In any eventuality, it's hard to see Hollingsworth having much of an effect on the national gay marriage question.

United States v. Windsor (the DOMA challenge) couldn't be more different. That does have national ramifications, albeit more limited ones than you might think. As an Equal Protection Clause case that challenges Section 3 of DOMA, which defines marriage as being between a man and a woman in the federal law itself.

The Court would have to take a much more expansive view of the law than I think they will to apply a repeal of Section 3 to the states. I just don't think that there's a majority on the Court for that.

The Court could very well strike down Section 3, apply it only to the federal government and ignore the rest of DOMA, which isn't at issue in Windsor.

A much, much stronger challenge would be Section 2, which states that "No State, territory, or possession of the United States, or Indian tribe, shall be required to give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other State, territory, possession, or tribe respecting a relationship between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage under the laws of such other State, territory, possession, or tribe, or a right or claim arising from such relationship."

Section 2 is flagrantly in violation of the Full Faith and Credit Clause. There simply is no way to read it otherwise. In fact, Section 2 uses the " public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other State" language of the Clause to deny its applicability. It's almost impossible to imagine Section 2 withstanding any level of scrutiny whatsoever.

If Section 2 is thrown out, it wouldn't matter what the federal government or the individual states did because recognition of gay marriages would be immediate, nationwide and benefits couldn't be denied by anyone.

Again, I think that both Hollingsworth and Windsor will be decided as narrowly as the Court can manage. I don't expect the victories that other gay marriage supporters want or expect, but affirmative rulings in these two cases - even exceptionally narrow ones - make the next round of cases harder to defend against.

Furthermore, as these challenges continue making their way through the federal courts, more and more states are legalizing same-sex marriage; either through the state courts, the legislatures, and now at the ballot box. American popular opinion is also changing much more quickly than I ever thought it would. Three different polls from just last month show that a majority of Americans now supports same sex marriage, up from just 22% in March, 2004.

No matter what happens, there isn't going to a decades-long controversy, a la Roe v. Wade, that haunts America.

George Will said it best just this past weekend.

Who Wants to Marry a Porn Star?

I I was born like this. I had no choice. I'm a lifelong romantic. That was true even when I was in the crib. I just can't help it, and you shouldn't hate me for it.

Even as a toddler, the sight of a beautiful woman had a profound and undeniable affect on me. Whenever, say, my second grade teacher passed by desk, I'd take a peek at her bangin' little ass, ensconced as it was in her tight 70s slacks, and grip my crotch until my knuckles turned white, lest my Cry of Love escape my loins in the middle of a penmanship lesson. And that remains the case some 35 years later.

Some folks, feminists and she-males mostly, try to insist to me that there is some kind of a difference between love and lust. This is not unlike fables about alligators living in the sewer and awaiting the opportunity to lunge from the toilet and bite your junk off. It's an old wives tales, and not something that Serious People entertain.

Every great romantic knows that it's possible to like a member of the opposite sex a great deal, but it's self-evident that you cannot love them if the very sight of them doesn't compel you to punish your genitals into a swollen, distended and irreversibly distended mess of chafed skin and leaking bodily fluids. That's just how biology works, and who am I to question it? To quote the late Billy Preston, "That's the way God planned it, that's the way God wants it to be!"

From time to time, I'll research developments in the world of Modern Love and - I'm not going to lie to you - I'm often shocked at what I find (link NSFW.)

The latest Vivid Entertainment-XCritic.com "Sex Tracker" poll indicates that 61.4 percent of men would consider marrying a porn star and 85.8 percent said they would be happy to date one. The online survey of sexual preferences also revealed that 86.7 percent of respondents consider adult entertainment to be "a positive part of our culture."

Why was I shocked by this? I had no idea that so many men were such indecisive beta-male assholes, that's why! Saying that you would only "consider" marrying a porn star couldn't be a stronger indication that civilization is falling into a bottomless pit of wanton stupidity and faggotry. It shows how cosmically wrong we are becoming as the moorings of society disintegrate beneath our feet.

Ignore everything that social conservatives and religious types tell you. They believe all kinds of crazy shit that is utterly incompatible with living a Good Life. Those people wouldn't know Joy if it put on steel-toed boots and kicked them in the balls until they bled from their fucking eyes.

Those people embrace superstitious and silly notions about a better life after this one that tend to leave men angry, sexually stunted and inclined to blow one another in awkward public places.

Absent any evidence to the contrary, you should grab life by the goodies and rub them until it falls in an exhausted heap at your feet and lovingly calls you "Daddy." Because it's more likely than not that it all ends here. The only heaven that any of us are likely to know is between one another's thighs.

I know that my readership consists of thoroughly modern ladies and gentlemen. So if you ever find yourself asked whether you'd consider marrying a porn star, you know that the correct answer is "Consider it? I'd engage in a genocide to do it! Who has to go? Where's my machete and mustard gas?"

I marvel at ordinary women to the point that I fall in love with them at least 37 times a day. Some might think that shallow, but you and I know that they have no concept of what time it is, don't we? I don't want anything that follows to minimize the profound aching that they create in both my chest and my crotch.

But porn stars are just naturally superior people. I'm not convinced that they weren't created by an ancient scientist named Yakub from the Tribe of Shabazz to rule the world and subjugate lesser beings until Ezekiel's Wheel takes us all into space. I don't know if that's true, but I like to believe that it is.

As a general rule, porn stars are better looking than their civilian counterparts, definitely more flexible (as evidenced by the popularity of the piledriver in their fine films) and generally more given to adventure. They're an unstoppable force of nature, not even fearing the dreaded rectal prolapse in their quest to rule our hearts and minds.

Moreover, they face down adversity with a degree of courage not even found in the professional military. If you don't believe me, just ask the great Briana Banks.




I'm pretty sure that if you were subjected to an entire business day with Max Hardcore, you'd do a lot more than disappear for two months and change your name. That dude is wrong on so many levels that science is not yet capable of properly counting them. If you've never seen a Max Hardcore movie, don't. I did it so you don't have to. And it creeped me out, so I have no doubt that it'll leave you weeping in the fetal position.

But Briana persevered. Not just because she's a professional, my good friends. And not just because she's a hero. She struggled through it because she's the greatest hero of our age.

Miss Banks was pretty much perfect when she began her epic quest for Art and Romance, but she always knew that she could be better, so she had her (already more than nice) breasts enlarged twice. She's blessed with a supermodel's face and the self-declared "longest legs in the business." And I've seen her do things with her asshole that defy description. I'd just be cheating you if I tried describing them anyway. But one of them involves a bowling pin.

Even the sands of time won't stop her! At the professionally elderly age of 34, she's moved on to the MILF side of the business, where she continues to make my wonderous wang spit with a combination of adoration, wonderment and frustrated fury.

And if you think that her epic quest for adventure ends at the conclusion of her business day, you couldn't be more wrong.

AVN Hall of Famer and star of the films The Cougar Club 3, TSA: Your Ass Is in Our Hands, and Sodomania Slop Shots 9 & 10, among many others, Briana Banks, was recently arrested and charged with DUI at an L.A. McDonald's drive-thru. A witness contacted police after Banks hit another car at about 9 AM on Wednesday, alerting them that she looked to be under the influence of something. The police pulled her over at the McDonald's drive-thru and gave her a field sobriety test, which she failed leading to her arrest. Banks was then booked and shortly after released.

People who don't appreciate the finer things in life might try to tell you that 9 AM on a Wednesday morning is hardly the time to be under the influence, and that a McDonald's drive-thru isn't the place for it. Not only should you ignore them, you should crush their airway with a finishing hammer.

I've given this a lot of thought over the last three days, and I just can't think of a better time or place to be filled to the brim with pills, powders and amber liquids. And as you all know, I'm a pretty intelligent fellow. If there were a more appropriate way to approach a Wednesday morning at a McDonald's drive-thru, it surely would've occurred to me over the last 72 hours. However, I' ve done the math and science and there just isn't.

I've also considered what advice I would have offered to Briana, if given the opportunity. And the answer is none. By the looks of things, she handling things exactly the way that I would.

And to top it all off she even takes an adorable mugshot! Those aren't meant to be especially flattering photographs, but Briana couldn't be cuter in hers, even without proper lighting, full make-up, a gaffer and a Best Boy. If you need any more evidence that Briana Banks is just genetically better than you are, look no further than that booking photo. That's just good science, people!

Somewhere out in the Great Beyond, Yakub is proud of his good and great work. I can't prove it, but that doesn't stop me from knowing it all the same. I guess that makes me religious - although, in my own special way - after all.

Would I marry Briana Banks? I'll answer that question with a question.

Who has to go? And where is my machete and mustard gas?

Bill O'Reilly: The Gold Standard of Stupid

If you haven't noticed this already, I'm a weird kind of conservative. I actually believe in giving the maximum amount of practical freedom to the people, even if it's at the expense of the government, especially the federal government.

For example, if you believe that the federal government has the duty to "protect the family" from anything other than armed foreigners I respectfully submit that your family just isn't worth saving. Something is eventually going to get them, and it's very likely going to be their own idiocy. Try as you might, there's just way to legislate against ignorance and superstition.

There's a cost-benefit ratio inherent in conservatism that most conservatives seem to have forgotten about, particularly where federal power is concerned. .

Here's how I feel. If I don't give a shit about something, I'm pretty sure that there's no reason for the government to give a shit. At best, such issues are best left to more local levels of government. Ideally, they should be left to the people.

There are already more than enough meaningless laws that are never enforced. I would argue that most of them are passed for no other reason than for stupid people to feel good about themselves. Look at the Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004. Murdering a woman is, contrary to popular opinion, not a federal crime in the United States. But four states out fifty didn't make killing the fetus of a pregnant woman a crime, so Congress stepped in. So far as I know, there has never been a case prosecuted under the UVVA, but it sure makes idiots feel good about themselves.

And that brings me to Bill O'Reilly. He'd never describe himself as a conservative (he prefers "traditional American"instead,) which is good because he's an idiot that wants a small federal government that does fantastically huge and stupidly intrusive things.

I'm sure that you've all heard about the Kansas City football player that killed his girlfriend and himself last weekend. It was tragic and sad, but more tragic still was the opportunity it gave idiots to be idiotic.

 

Bob Costas made a remarkably stupid argument. That's because football and baseball aren't "America's pastime;" killing one another is. Lots of countries, from Somalia to Switzerland, have an excess of guns. But no other country sees its citizens killing each other for no reason quite like the United States. Not only are they good at it, they enjoy it. Anyone who has watched MSNBC on the weekend knows that.

The available evidence suggests that Jovan Belcher really wanted himself and Kasandra Perkins dead. If he didn't have a gun, he probably would have used a knife or even a really big stick. One way or another, those folks were gonna get dead.

It's important to note that Costas works for NBC. That's because Bill O'Reilly might be the only living person left watching NBC. If anyone on NBC says anything at all, there's a better than even chance that O'Reilly will feature it on his insipid "Talking Points Memo."

And guess what Bill's topic has been this week!


Wow. So much stupid. Can barely breathe. It burns, I tell you! It burns!

Let's take this point by point, shall we?

Well, even if you believe what Costas and Whitlock are putting out there, what's the solution? The Constitution gives Americans the right to protect themselves, that's clear. In many parts of the country people need hand guns in order to feel secure against criminals who might harm them.

Actually, the Constitution does no such thing. Here is the Second Amendment in full.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Look at the language of the amendment. Nowhere in it is the right to "feel secure against criminals who might harm them." That's just not what the Constitution says.

If you read the Federalist Papers, there is only one thing (other than that the English monarchy eats ass) that the Founders agreed upon - that there should be no standing army. A standing army is an invitation to constant foreign war, which is something that the years from 1989 through, well, now, sort of prove.

But European conquest of the New World was still rather a fad in 1789. The Spanish had Mexico and Florida, and the British had Canada. The United States had to defend itself somehow, right? That's where "A well regulated Militia" comes in.

Militias weren't necessary to secure a free state from criminals back then, since there were already police. The Second Amendment was created to defend against foreign invasion without putting together a standing army.

That might sound to you like a wildly liberal reading of the Amendment, but it's what it actually says. If you don't read so good, I'll print it again.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

See? The language really isn't that complicated.

On the other hand, if gun ownership is a constitutional right, I can't see any language barring carrying by convicted felons, the mentally ill or near federal buildings and schools. That's not there, either. But there is no literal reading of the language that gives you the right to blow a hole in Treyvon Martin's chest. Just sayin'.

Look, I don't care if you have a gun or not. Accordingly, that's something I'd leave to the people, just as a matter of common sense. Shooting people is, more often than not, already a crime. But the idea that's it's an individual right, absent national defence, is an incredibly expansive and hardly literal reading of what the Second Amendment actually says.

O'Reilly continues bringing the stupid.

"Talking Points" has long felt that criminals who use handguns should be punished more harshly than they are now. In fact, all gun crimes in America should be federalized and that includes illegal possession. The level of aggression that a criminal brings is far greater when that criminal uses a gun. A lethal weapon is just that... lethal.

And so there should be mandatory federal prison time for any person convicted of having a gun illegally and if you commit a crime with a gun that mandatory should be 10 years.

I hate to be a know-it-all, but is there is a single state in the Union where "having a gun illegally" is anything other than, well, illegal? Logic would also instruct me to believe that committing a crime with a gun is already a crime.

Keep in mind, this is a "traditional, small government guy," who just happens to want expansive federal laws that infringe on state jurisdiction.

And the past 10 years there has been an increase in the number of handguns in America. There may be 100 million of them in circulation right now. But there has been a decrease in handgun crime. 10 years ago there are about 7,000 handgun murders. Last year the number was about 6,000 it is quite understandable that people are reacting emotionally to this terrible crime in Kansas City.

But the problem America has is not law abiding citizens possessing weapons. That's not damaging the nation. Crimes committed with handguns and out-of-control people -- that's what's hurting the USA. You'll never stop crimes of madness, you're never going to stop them like the Kansas City situation.

But you can put violent criminals away for a long time if they use a gun during the commission of a crime. And that should be done.

You know how Bill O'Reilly's right? Because federal drug laws have worked so swimmingly! Notice how no one is getting high anymore?

If you want to point to a decrease in American handgun deaths in the last decade, have I got a statistic for you!

About the same number of  Americans were killed by other Americans with handguns in the United States in the last twelve months than were killed in Afghanistan and Iraq in the last ten years.

In that spirit, here cometh the Great Battle of the Morons.



Oh God, it burns. It burns so bad!

"BEARS AND INDIANS!"

Nothing beats the Aurora "Dark Knight Rises" argument, though. That is classical stupidity of the sort that I'm sure will one day be taught in classrooms.

So let's say you're in a really dark room that's suddenly filled with tear gas and gun fire. Do you really think that shooting wildly and blindly into the darkness is going to end well? Really? Because pretty much anyone who knows anything about guns will tell you not to shoot at something you can't see, especially with at least hundred people around you.

Here's what I've learned. The problem isn't with people having guns, it's with idiots having guns.

Unfortunately, almost everybody is an idiot.

And that's why I watch the O'Reilly Factor. So you don't have to.

Some Clarifications in the Strange and Savage Fall of Rob Ford

One of these things is not like the other


 

Obviously, I disagree with Now Weekly's decision to use a cover image of Rob Ford that brings to mind the famous Time cover from the week Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his Berlin bunker. Hitler analogies are to be used sparing, so great are the sensitives to the monstrous crimes of the "Thousand Year Reich and its erstwhile fuhrer. Such analogies such have some semblance of historical accuracy, which is why sensible people are so offended by the Now cover.

You shouldn't compare Rob Ford to Hitler, mostly because it's unfair .. to Hitler.

Hitler's story remains so terrifying because of how improbable it was. In not quite 15 years, he went from being a Vienna hobo to controlling a major industrial nation and amassing the greatest land army Europe had seen to that point.

Until his dual miscalculations in invading Poland in 1939 and the Soviet Union in 1941, Hitler had been undeniably effective. He had cast aside the yoke of the Versailles treaty, rearmed Germany and began his conquest of Central Europe without a single shot being fired. He was demonic and his ideas contradictory and confusing, but until his hubris overtook his judgement, Hitler accomplished far more than anyone had reason to expect he would.

No fair reading of the record would suggest anything comparable about Rob Ford. He can't even control City Council most of the time.

The only way that Ford and Hitler are similar is in their respective downfalls. Both blamed strange conspiracies that stabbed them in the back, but the truth is that they were both brought low by hubris, grandiose notions and the idea that they would triumph through the sheer force of their will.

And make no mistake, Ford did this to himself. He isn't Hitler so much as he is a half-witted and intellectually pedestrian Richard Nixon. When Mr. Justice Hackland's order removing the Mayor was handed down last Monday, I immediately thought of the former president's rare concession to David Frost in their famous interviews; "I brought myself down," Nixon admitted. "I gave them a sword and they stuck it in and twisted it with relish. And I guess that if I had been in their position, I'd have done the same thing."



In the last week, I've seen any number of assertions, both in my comments section here and elsewhere in the media, that need to be challenged.

The first major assertion is that Ford was disgraced by mysterious progressives playing dirty. Doug Ford has made that argument repeatedly, citing the law firm that represented Paul Magder.

I'll grant you that that's an amusing straw man, but it's little more than that. Mayor Ford wasn't framed, for Christ's sake. As a matter of fact, he was repeatedly warned about the perils of his continuing conduct, first by Integrity Commissioner Janet Leiper, then by Council's then-Speaker, Sandra Bussin, who warned that he might be in a conflict of interest. Ford, being Ford, pressed ahead anyway, thinking that he knew better than everyone else and that the rules just didn't apply to him.

Moreover, the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act wasn't a secret that was being hidden by the enemies of the Ford family. It was passed in public 22 years ago. It has been the governing law in Ontario for a generation now.

The second flawed assertion is that "This is all about Ford's football charity, which is a good thing, right?"

Actually, no it isn't either all about the charity, nor is it necessarily a good thing.

Royson James (who I should really stop citing as a reference, but has written good stuff on this story) gives a detailed history in Friday's Toronto Star.

Ford announced his candidacy for mayor during one of his frequent appearances on AM 640 on March 25, 2010. Six weeks later, Leiper received a complaint from a citizen.

The complainant, not a ward constituent, had received a donation request from Ford on his councillor letterhead, postmarked March 19. The money was for Ford’s football foundation, a charity set up in 2008 to buy football equipment for struggling high school teams.

The complainant wrote that the letter “left me uncomfortable. While it was not stated in words, there was a clear sense of an implied suggestion that a donation to his charity might serve me well should he be elected mayor.”

It wasn’t the first such complaint. In December 2009 and February 2010, Leiper had warned Ford to separate his private fundraising efforts from his public councillor’s job and not use city hall letterhead to raise money.

Now, she advised Ford again — twice in person and twice by telephone — to no avail. Ford responded: “I do not understand why it would be inappropriate to solicit funds for an arms-length charitable cause using my regular employment letterhead.” The complaint had no basis in policy or law, he wrote. Besides, a “worthy cause would be undermined by an inconsequential complaint about the use of letterhead.”

Leiper asked him to reconsider. Councillor Ford refused to amend his response.

The two previous complaints give insights into Ford’s thinking.

“On Nov. 11, 2009, a member of the public provided a copy of a mailing received from Councillor Ford which contained the same “Dear Friends” letter requesting donations to the football foundation, along with a copy of the news article, a business card from Rob Ford, Councillor, a fridge magnet for Rob Ford Etobicoke North Councillor and a promotional sticker for Deco Labels and Tags, the Ford family business.”

Ford agreed it was improper to include the Deco sticker in the mailing. But he added a couple of telling twists that would recur as he plunged deeper into trouble.

For one, city letterhead paper isn’t city property because he paid for it out of his own pocket, Ford argued. Secondly, his fundraising falls within city business because it assists underprivileged residents. And, he maintained, the Toronto Community Foundation, which administers his charitable foundation, had approved the content of his fundraising.

He was wrong on all counts and Leiper told him so, Dec. 10, 2009.

City council had established the position of integrity commissioner to assist politicians with issues not clearly black and white. When in doubt on a code of conduct issue, councillors were to check with the commissioner and go with her advice or risk a complaint and a finding of violation.

Leiper was clear that Ford’s actions were improper. By “asking citizens for money for a personal cause on councillor letterhead, there is a risk that you could be seen to be using your influence as a councillor to raise money for your private foundation,” Leiper wrote to Ford.

She reported that “Councillor Ford was advised that lobbyists or developers who might want to seek his support in his role as councillor might feel that they could do that by making donations to his named foundation.

“Finally, I identified the City of Toronto logo as being property of the City of Toronto that is subject to the Use of Corporate Logo, Donations and Sponsorships policy to be used only for officially sanctioned City of Toronto business.”

Separate your councillor business from your private fundraising efforts, Ford was told. He apologized to the complainant, but would continue to violate the code of conduct.
Leiper’s probe uncovered other troubling facets of Ford’s fundraising efforts, later reported to council.

• Ford’s Ward 2 website improperly featured links for donations to his private charity.

• Ford frequently used office staff and city resources to solicit funds and manage the foundation on city time.

• Ford’s mayoral campaign website boasted that his foundation had donated $100,000 to eight schools. Leiper’s investigation uncovered records showing the foundation had raised only $37,294.68 and assisted four schools since its inception.

• There was a “lack of rigour to record-keeping by Councillor Ford that included deleting or discarding the source material used to create the mailing lists, and the details of financial reporting.”

• Ford failed to provide records showing his donor list — records Leiper needed to check to see how many were registered as lobbyists. Leiper asked Ford if he was aware he was soliciting from lobbyists. He first denied knowing, then acknowledged that he knew two of them.

“I asked him if he had been lobbied after he had received a donation from them. He responded that it was ‘ridiculous to say something like that.’ Neither he, nor his assistant, responded to requests to confirm whether they had met with the lobbying firm.”

• Leiper found 26 businesses who donated to Ford’s charity between August 2009 and May 7, 2010. Eleven had been lobbying city hall for business during this time. Seven of the 11 were registered to lobby Ford. The lobbyists donated $3,150 to Ford’s charity.

• One donor ($400 in 2009) received “multi-million-dollar contracts spanning 2009-2011,” awarded by the city through competitive bidding.

If there were any doubts as to Leiper’s concerns, her Aug. 10, 2010, report to council erased them.


Strict rules on both sides exist to ensure city hall lobbying is transparent and conducted with integrity. She quoted directly from Justice Denise Bellamy, who headed up the Toronto Leasing Inquiry into one of the city’s biggest scandals:
“When public office holders, elected or not, accept meals, gifts, entertainment and other favours from those attempting to influence them, they corrode public trust.”

Bellamy’s “list of problematic corporate benefits” included donations to charitable events sponsored by public office holders, Leiper said. She detailed the improper nature of Ford’s actions:

“In this case, Councillor Ford solicited and received donations from lobbyists to his named private foundation, on City of Toronto official letterhead from his office at city hall where he conducts his councillor business.

“In return for these donations from lobbyists, Councillor Ford received the benefit of additional funding to his foundation, which he used to enhance his reputation both as a councillor via his website and as a candidate by including this information in his campaign materials.”

Ford usually called all donors to personally thank them. Sometimes, more money was requested.

 “This was not an “arm’s-length” arrangement,” Leiper wrote, as Ford “combined the roles of public office holder and private citizen. It would be understandable if those who made donations concluded that they were ‘doing the councillor a favour’ by making a donation to his foundation.”

Leiper then addressed head-on the argument that the donations were for a good cause.

“The validity of the charitable cause is not the point. The more attractive the cause or charity, the greater the danger that other important questions will be overlooked, including who is being asked to donate, how are they being asked, who is doing the asking, and is it reasonable to conclude that a person being asked for money will take into account the position of the person asking for the donation.

“Where there is an element of personal advantage (in this case, the publication of the councillor’s good works, even beyond what they had actually achieved), it is important not to let the fact that it is “all for a good cause” justify using improper methods for financing that cause.

“People who are in positions of power and influence must make sure their private fundraising does not rely on the metaphorical ‘muscle’ of perceived or actual influence in obtaining donations.”

(I apologize in advance for blockquoting so much of Mr. James' article, but this is the clearest, most concise reading available on the intricacies of this case)

Not only were city resources being expended on Ford's private fundraising, the results of said resources were being used on his campaign website and other political materials. That has a truly awful ethical appearance.

And as I've now said repeatedly, it is the solicitation of donations from lobbyists and other entities with business before the city that I find most troubling. That alone is enough for me to support his removal and disqualification from ever returning. Using official letterhead could suggest to the recipient that the solicitation is approved by the city itself and add pressure to give. Those donations would then be touted by the Ford campaign for political gain.

Unlike some, I'm not going to paint that as outright corruption, but that's only because I don't think that Rob Ford is bright enough to devise a corrupt motive.

Ford Nation's definition of a conflict of interest is also laughable. There needn't be a direct financial conflict between the city and a given councillor, contrary to borderline retarded arguments made both in court and in other public venues. Ford could be in conflict in his roles as a representative of his foundation and his duties as councillor and mayor.

The fact remains that he was warned over and over and over again. Pretty much everyone around him knew that this wasn't going to end well. Being either arrogant or stupid is bad enough, being both is one of the most combustible combinations known in politics.

Of course, I'm not going to pretend that this wasn't compounded by other aspects of Ford's personality. He made a name for himself by embarrassing other councillors on their office expenditures and making a huge show of paying for his office budget himself.

If you're going to make that kind of a spectacle of yourself in politics, you had damn well better be as pure as the driven snow. If you're not, there's going come a time when you need the political support of your colleagues, and it isn't going to be there.

Anthony Weiner didn't disintegrate as quickly as he did just because he liked tweeting pictures of his wang. Other politicians survived worse things than that. Weiner was forced to resign because other Democrats had long and thorough experience with what an unbearable prick he was. When he needed friends the most. he found that he had created a situation where he didn't have any.

You know how many conservative councillors are cooperating with Ford's game plan since last Monday? One. His brother.

If there's one thing that everything in the goddamned city knows, it's that Rob Ford would be showing no mercy to anyone else in the position he's put himself in. As a matter of fact, within seconds, he'd be holding a stupid press conference denouncing the person and uttering moronic bumper sticker slogans about gravy trains and corruption.

This is the quandary that the Mayor has put himself in. He built a career pissing on his colleagues, thinking that he could win by appealing to the people. But the people are so exhausted by the endless string of embarrassments that he's brought upon himself that they aren't supporting him, either.

I was shocked by the Angus Reid poll on Friday. I knew that his numbers would be bad, but I had no idea that they'd be that bad.  To one degree or another, almost three-quarters of the city supports his ouster. And his personal favourability numbers are almost as bad.

Remember when the Tea Party romped to power in Congress two years ago and Barack Obama was declared finished? Obama's polling was nearly twice as good as Ford's is. And he's so delusional that he's agitating for a campaign that he could win, at least in theory, but would require so many different things to go exactly right that it's almost hopeless.And how you run on a message of "respect the taxpayer" while forcing an incredibly expensive and totally unnecessary election is beyond me.

I've compared Rob Ford to Richard Nixon a few times in the last eight days. It's a good analogy, but far from a great one. There's one incredibly important difference between Ford and Nixon.

Richard Nixon was smart enough to know when he was beaten once and for all.

A New and Exciting Approach to Higher Education: "Don't Rape"

You ever see something that you know should make you angry, but makes you laugh so hard that you just don't have the energy to be outraged after the giggles stop? That's exactly what happened to me when I saw the picture to the left on a friend's Facebook page.

Don't get me wrong, it's a very earnest message but it's also a compelling argument that the great P.J O'Rourke was right when he said that "Earnestness is stupidity sent to college."

As hilarious as I think that this is, I'm also of the opinion that it's also somewhat dangerous in so far as it tends to trivialize something as serious as rape. In all seriousness, if a man is of university age and still a monster, I'm not comlpetely convinced that a lecture from a tenured professor is going to do a whole lot to change that.

I'm not going to discount entirely the possibility that I'm just a hyper-conservative whackjob and genetically wrong about everything, but it seems to me that the socialization process regarding sexual assault should start a lot earlier than when you're eligible for our first federal student loan. Again, I could be way off about this. I just don't think I am.

Look, I get that statements like this make everybody feel good, but I reckon that it's well past time that we recognize that things that make you feel good are often pretty stupid. Take cocaine as just one example. It makes you feel awesome, but it's a really poorly considered lifestyle choice unless, of course, you're me. Always remember that these are professional tricks, performed by a professional and not intended for home use.

The basic premise of this message is silly for practical reasons, as well. For those of you who spent too much time in school, I think it's necessary to point out that feminism is a philosophy. It might well be that it is among the finest philosophies ever devised, but that misses an essential point. So far as I'm aware, no philosophy is going to overwhelm a violent oaf with a hard cock that outweighs you by as much as 80 pounds. I have yet to see that in a mixed martial arts class. There comes a point when things like reason are pretty much useless.

Here's something else you might not know. Carrying around the collected works of Satre never prevented anyone from being shot to death, either. Just sayin'.

Having said that, a philosophy will make you feel better about yourself after you've already been victimized. I get that. Maybe I'm an oddball, but I'd emphasize preventing your victimization in the first place. I know, crazy, right?

I understand that you have the right to get drunk and pass out in the dorm room of some horny bastard that you barely know at 3 am, but that right doesn't necessarily immunize you from the consequences of your exercise of said right. You have the right to be free from rape, but you also have the right to vote. The only problem is that less than half the population chooses to exercise it.

Statistics show that nearly three out of four women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetimes. However, attacks by a stranger are relatively rare, which is why they keep winding up in the newspaper. Assaults are always unforgivable and unjustified and, in some cases, unavoidable.

My point is that they're not always unavoidable. The odds are that you will be raped, and it'll be by someone you know. Rape is also, in most circumstances, a crime of opportunity. Deny the victimizer the opportunity and your chances of being a victim decrease dramatically. That's not always true, but it's true enough of the time that it should really be considered.

Just as the aforementioned Mr. O'Rourke implied, earnestness often carries the day, particularly in politically correct institutions such as universities. That being the case, I can pretty much guarantee you that common sense is going to go right out the fucking window and "Don't rape" is going to taught in college.

It therefore stands to reason that there's going to be a test of some kind. I can't be the only one who really looks forward to the questions on it, can I?

Please complete the following sentence. "It's right to force yourself sexually on a woman after a date .."

a) Never
b) Always
c) When dinner and the movie cost over $200.

Is that going to prevent a single act of sexual violence? Probably not. But it will make any number of dumb people feel better.

And if you ever wondered why I cheer the asteroid squashing the Aerosmith guy's kid in the great Bruce Willis movie that is life, now you know.

I'd be remiss if I didn't leave you good folks without a life lesson from the master of common sense, Adan Carolla.




But what about girls who aren't of college age yet? Doesn't popular culture have a message for them?