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Toronto's crack smoking mayor got his own TV show - and finally could speak his mind without all those pesky reporters asking questions. The hour-long "Ford Nation" show that aired Monday on Canada’s Sun News Network gave Rob Ford a pressure-free environment to tell his side of the story after spending the last week sticking his foot in his mouth in front of the press and being attacked politically after admitting to drinking too much - and sometimes smoking crack cocaine.

These thoughts are my own and not necessarily those of Free Republic. ON ROB FORD Schadenfreude has never been so delightful. Talking heads worldwide are obsessed by the admitted illegal activities of a man, in a city, in a country, they didn’t care about yesterday. Someone in the parlor has done some very, very bad things – uttered the word “pu--y” to boot – and the titillating evil of it all is too much to handle. Of course, Justin Trudeau (son of Pierre,) now gunning for Prime Minister, elicited mild yawns and golf applause from Canada’s holier, hempier, and greener...

Toronto’s crack-smoking mayor Rob Ford warned Nov. 13 yet more scandals may come out as he faced a grilling by the city council but denied he was an addict. ~snip~ Ford said he could not assure council that there were no more skeletons in his closet. “I don’t know. I don’t know, there might be like a coat hanger left in my closet. I don’t know. I don’t know what is left,” he said.

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford says he is taking legal action against the former staffers who made stunning allegations about the mayor in a police document, saying he consorted with escorts and used sexually explicit language to a woman working for him. In a profane media scrum aired live on television that left journalists gasping, Ford, wearing a Toronto Argos jersey, denied many of the allegations laid forth in the court documents, although he admitted to occasionally drinking and driving. He was particularly angry about his staffers telling police that they thought a young friend of his was a prostitute. “I...

Toronto's embattled mayor, Rob Ford, professed a zero-tolerance policy for drugs and gangs on Wednesday, but he also admitted he has bought illegal drugs in the past two years. Speaking after Toronto City Council almost unanimously urged Ford to take a break from his duties, Ford said he could not change the past and would continue his efforts as mayor to save Toronto money.

Former Clinton advisor James Carville pointed out Monday that President Obama, whose approval rating has sunk to 41 percent because the U.S. economy “is not growing for a lot of people,” is not even as popular as the crack-smoking mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford. Appearing on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” show, Carville told host Joe Scarborough that the president’s numbers are so low that “the best thing he can do is take a toke on the mayor of Toronto’s crack pipe, because his numbers are about 48.” …

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is doubling down against calls for his resignation amid reports that police have a video showing him smoking crack. In a whirlwind radio show on Sunday, the embattled mayor apologized for getting drunk in public and said he would try and make sure it didn't happen again. "I shouldn't have got hammered down at the Danforth [festival]," Ford said on his weekly radio show Sunday, according to Toronto's Globe and Mail newspaper. "If you are going to have a couple drinks, you stay at home. You don't make a public spectacle of yourself." But Ford did...

Ford friend Alexander Sandro Lisi charged with extortion related to the video, police chief says Toronto Police have recovered the video that appears to show Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine, Toronto police Chief Bill Blair said Thursday. “The video files depict images that are consistent with what has previously been reported” in the media, Blair said at a news conference on the heels of a release of documents used by police to obtain search warrants during their summer investigation. Ford has since May refused to comment on the video “that I have never seen or does not exist.” Blair...

Police in Toronto, Canada have stated that a video showing Toronto mayor Rob Ford using crack cocaine is in their possession. Moments ago the mayor greeted a throng of reporters outside his office with the statement that although he would like to defend himself, he cannot, as the issue is before the court. The allegation of crack use and news of a video initially surfaced this past summer, with representatives of the US website "Gawker" alleging that they had seen the video. Since then, evidently, the video was lost or deleted. As part of an ongoing investigation Toronto police maintain...

As two dramas about the conflict vie for attention at TIFF, normally outspoken actors and filmmakers on hand for the fest remain conspicuously mum on the subject. The conflict in Syria and the increasing likelihood of Western involvement is occupying hearts and minds at this year’s festival. Still, when it comes to Hollywood voices publicly weighing in on the debate over U.S. intervention in the territory, the silence has been deafening. A number of high-profile Hollywood names on hand for the festival, who’ve been outspoken in the past on U.S. military intervention, have been uncharacteristically quiet on the issue. THR...

http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/3942.htm

As residents of Toronto express anger over the death of Sammy Yatim, who was shot dead on a downtown streetcar over the weekend, Police Chief Bill Blair has vowed to investigate the actions of his officers. "I want to assure all the citizens of the city of Toronto of our unwavering commitment to get the answers they seek," Blair said in a brief news conference on Monday. The comments come after the 18-year-old was shot dead in Toronto shortly after midnight on Saturday.

Signs that Canadian citizens were involved in the attack by hostage-taking Islamist militants on a remote gas plant in Algeria are of great concern to American authorities, U.S. intelligence officials said on Thursday. While Algerian authorities apparently have not yet provided Western governments with cast-iron proof, a senior U.S. intelligence official said: “We’re taking very seriously the reports of the two Canadians’ involvement.” ... Confirmation that Canadian citizens were involved in the attack on the In Amenas facility in the Algerian desert would raise concerns about a worrying nexus between North America and North African militants. At least 38 plant...

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford denied that he smokes crack cocaine and said he is not an addict, breaking a week of silence over reports of a video purportedly showing him using the drug. Critics were not appeased, with one city councilor questioning whether the mayor told “the whole truth” and another calling on him to resign. The mayor of Canada’s largest city did not say whether he has ever used crack. He did not take questions from reporters at a news conference at City Hall, held after close allies released a letter urging him to address the reports of the...

The Toronto Star has seen the video in question. Much more to come on thestar.com

<p>BOSTON (CBS) — Clay Buchholz is off to a tremendous start for the Boston Red Sox this season, and his most recent impressive showing came at the expense of the Toronto Blue Jays. On Wednesday night, Buchholz silenced Jays bats, allowing just two hits and three walks over seven innings while striking out eight and keeping the Jays off the scoreboard.</p>

Two years ago today, SEAL Team Six sent Osama bin Laden on his way to Davy Jones’ Locker — but his Islamist terror machine is anything but sinking to the depths. It remains a vicious, global threat. Since Osama’s demise, the terror group’s strength has ebbed in some areas, but flowed strongly in others. Indeed, one current estimate concludes that al Qaeda affiliates and associates (i.e., groups, cells or operatives) are active in more than 30 countries (of some 190) on four continents. Including our continent. While we don’t yet know the whole story behind the Boston bombing, just last...

For seven minutes, five Dagestan rebels spoke into a video camera about killing infidels and how the “good deeds” they were doing would absolve them of “700 sins” committed during their lifetimes. Filmed by a Canadian jihadist fighter before he was killed by Russian security forces, the video offers a disturbing glimpse of the fanaticism of the rebels who may have inspired Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Tsarnaev does not appear in the footage, which was obtained by the National Post. But it was recorded and narrated by William Plotnikov, a Canadian whose alleged links to Tsarnaev are now under...

Radicalized Muslims do operate and recruit in Toronto and one Islamic leader warns we shouldn’t be surprised by news of more nefarious terror plots in the future. “There are a lot of people in our community that are a little rigid,” Muhammad Robert Heft, of the Paradise Forever Islamic Centre, said Wednesday. “Not thousands but hundreds.” Hundreds? In a week when one GTA resident, along with a Montrealer, have been charged by the RCMP in a terror plot to murder innocent people on a passenger train, it’s a troubling detail. But it’s not new for Heft, a Muslim convert who...

TORONTO — The Toronto imam who first brought forward concerns about one of the suspects in the alleged al-Qaeda-linked train plot wants to remain anonymous, his lawyer said Tuesday. Naseer Syed said the imam came to him more than a year ago about the suspect’s conduct. “It was enough of a concern and it passed a certain threshold than the imam felt comfortable with,” he said. The lawyer said he then notified the appropriate authorities. On Monday, the RCMP credited the imam’s tip with helping bring terrorism-related charges against Raed Jaser and Chiheb Esseghaier.