The Toronto Star newsroom joins the growing ©ClusterFord of formerly reliable newspapers that have succumbed to the confounding allure of a Ford administration (and pressure from new, true blue owners, NordStar Capital). A May 9 poll projecting a one-seat majority victory ../2
...for DoFo was heralded as tracking to a majority win, three weeks ahead of the vote and before the 2 leaders' debates had even taken place. That two fewer seats would see Ford defeated on the floor of the legislature in Sept/22 was not conveyed to readers;

Northern .../3
...Ontario journalism's pro-Doug Ford bias is on full display following Debate No. 1, as Village Media, publisher of 23 titles in the region and in the southwest, offered slanted news coverage of the May 10 North Bay wordfest: "Ford put on an impressive performance. He stuck ../4
...to his talking points and carried himself exactly the same way he has in his 4 years in power. He rolled with the punches from each side as Horwath and Del Duca doubled up with the barbs questioning his record, including criticism of Ford's handling of aspects of the.../5
...Covid pandemic — an assertion he pushed back on immediately."

The chain's newspapers in Timmins, Sault Ste. Marie and Elliot Lake ran identical pieces with the same quote, as did 2 other titles, Newstrend 365 and Latest Active News;

May 24, Ford mocked Global's Sean.../6
...O'Shea in an impromptu, confrontational interview where he was being challenged on his donor invoicing scam from Aug/21. Doug’s henchmen then roughed up @ConsumerSOS on camera, the evasive premier irked that the dogged O'Shea had tracked him down.../7
In a typically ham-handed move from the crew boss of Ford Nation, Con operatives have resurrected their in-house, faux-news reporting team, the Ontario News Network, ostensibly to subvert the role of the press in the political process;

Ford was a staff pundit on Rebel TV../8
...the Christofascist-friendly, Fox News clone that at the time employed Postmedia's Brian Lilley and Gavin McInnes, founder of the hate group, the "Proud Boys";

Postmedia's Ottawa Citizen breaks ranks with its libertarian media colleagues in an Apr 2, 2022 editorial.../9
... demanding Ford/Elliott/Moore resurrect Covid mandates and stop "harping on about living with Covid and returning to normal."

The Toronto Star's Bruce Arthur joins in on Apr 4: "It appears Ontario doesn't care who gets infected and what happens, as long as people can../10
...walk around without masks and the hospitals don’t bleed into the streets."

#onpoli
#CLUSTERFORD

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More from @downtownrob88

May 31
The media has buried the lede again, as the impact of Ford's Bill 254 and its ham-fisted interference in election advertising and 3rd party involvement has been on display since the campaign began five weeks ago: Ford's face has been on screens continuously, along with the.../2
...huckster patter, but no issue advertising is to be heard;

Teachers, HCWs, the disabled, LTC/Covid victims, small business, etc., have been shut down, as Ford blunts (and handcuffs) critics as an election tactic. Nevertheless, an obtuse press pack wonders why the campaign.../3
...went flat;

April 2021, Ford's election financing revamp, aka the Protecting Ontario Elections Act, was characterized as the "Squashing Ontario Democracy Act" by Unifor, the country's largest private sector union;

Ford's election law is starkly favourable to his PCs; .../4
Read 7 tweets
May 31
April 2021, Ford's Bill 254 election financing revamp, aka the Protecting Ontario Elections Act, is characterized as the "Squashing Ontario Democracy Act" by Unifor, the country's largest private sector union;

Ford's election law is starkly favourable to his PCs, hobbling../2
...labour and other 3rd parties during campaigns, but personal allowable contribution limits are doubled to $3,000;

Ford's amendments double the time spending limits are imposed on political advertising by 3rd parties, from 6 to 12 months leading to an election. During.../3
.. that time, each interest group or individual's ad spend is now limited;

An ON Superior Court Justice found 4 sections of Bill 254 infringed s. 2. of the Charter based on freedom of expression;

In response to the Superior Court rebuke, as usual embracing audacity over.../4
Read 6 tweets
May 31
In a vindictive salvo against former Toronto city council colleagues, (no other city was targeted) Ford cuts wards from 47 to 25 in Aug 2018, four and a half months into the municipal election campaign ending in November; Ford also cancelled planned regional chair elections.../2
...in Peel and York, thwarting the ambitions of his political foes, Brampton mayor Patrick Brown and Liberal leader Steven Del Duca;

Toronto sued, and the courts hurriedly ruled Sept 10 that Ford’s gerrymandering of political districts was undemocratic. So Ford accused the.../3
...courts of being undemocratic for upholding the constitution, threatening to invoke the Charter's last resort notwithstanding clause;

Sept 18, 2018, days after learning of the Superior Court loss, Ford complained to reporters that a "democratically elected government" is.../4
Read 6 tweets
May 30
The media itself took control of the pro-Ford bullhorn, T-minus 9, when the Toronto Star's Ontario politics columnist, Martin Regg Cohn, worked up a fawning account of the New Doug Ford for the once-upon-a-time liberal standard bearer;

No doubt to the chagrin of Journalist.../2
...Cohn, the paper's new bosses put the puff piece on the front page with a 4-column picture and a headline proclaiming Ford's "Evolution" -- even as Ford disdains Official Toronto, has brutalized the City at every opportunity and is likely an evolution denier, to boot; /3
Not to be outdone, Global's muckraking Colin D'Mello, exposing himself to ridicule for not getting out much, puts the finger on Del Duca for putting on the Ritz, eating on the job to the tune of $50K over 6 years (!) at the Keg restaurant chain ($47 filet with two sides).../4
Read 4 tweets
May 30
Feb 8, 2022, Ford turns down City of Ottawa request for an emergency declaration over the trucker occupation, into its 11th day, as the negligent, likely complicit premier absconds from his duty of care to Ottawans, embracing instead the CPC strategy of ensnaring the PM in../2
...the uprising; the slow-playing Ford later acts on Feb 11 with little fanfare, hesitant to offend his shrill base of Covidiots;

As combined police forces arrest and remove the capital occupation following Trudeau's Feb 14, 2022 Emergencies Act passage, (police towed more.../3
...than 70 vehicles and arrested 191 people on 389 charges) Ford spins an alternate reality Feb 19: "I’ve worked on a plan for weeks and was hours away from ending this protest, but the federal government jumped ahead of my team."

Ford promised to send 1,500 OPP to help../4
Read 8 tweets
May 30
Snowmobiling Ford goes incommunicado for 5 days while the domestic and US-funded Jethro convoy of anti-Trudeau, anti-mandate anarchists barrelled through his province beginning Jan 26, 2022, sideswiping Toronto before hightailing it to Ottawa, promptly turning 20 blocks of.../2
...the capital's downtown core and Parliament Hill into a dystopian truck-stop on Jan 29;

The Konvoy runs amok in Ottawa, bringing 24/7 diesel fumes, honking horns and images of children being used as shields against police actions. The QAnons arrogantly brandish a farcical.../3
..."Memorandum of Understanding" challenging Canadian democracy, wave Nazi swastikas and US Confederate flags, (but lack a permit, plans or porta-potties);

The Ford-bolstered squatters indulge in violence and vandalism, urinating on war memorials, dancing on the tomb of the.../4
Read 6 tweets

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