EZRA LEVANT ｜ Canada’s largest journalism union launches an official campaign against Erin O’Toole
Episode Stats
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Summary
Unifor launches an attack ad against Conservative Party Leader Erin O'Toole. The National Post pays for it out of their own union dues to take a side in an election that they're going to cover. And the government won't even acknowledge it.
Transcript
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Tonight, Canada's largest journalist union launches an official campaign against Erin O'Toole.
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It's August 3rd and this is the Ezra LeBant Show.
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Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
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There's 8,500 customers here and you won't give them an answer.
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The only thing I have to say to the government of a wire publisher is because it's my bloody right to do so.
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So Canada's largest private sector union, which is also Canada's largest journalist union, it's called Unifor.
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They represent thousands of reporters who will be involved with covering the upcoming federal election,
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whether it's on-camera newsreaders or the producers who write the scripts for the newsreaders
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or the editors choosing and assigning the stories, even the photo editors deciding which pretty pictures to use
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That union has come out with an attack ad against Erin O'Toole, the Conservative Party leader.
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It's pretty weird to have news reporters pay for an ad out of their own union dues to take sides in an election that they're going to cover.
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It would be like if sports reporters all endorsed one team in a competition or a tournament if they were betting on the outcome.
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And not just an editorial endorsement, but actually spending their own money to cheer one team and to tear down the other.
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And then they went on TV and gave colour commentary about the very sports contest in which they took a side, maybe placed a bet.
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Engineered by big corporations to leave us behind.
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Another out-of-touch politician at a price we can't afford.
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But just about the ad itself, I don't have a lot of time for Aaron O'Toole.
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He's pro-lockdown, or at least hasn't done anything to oppose it.
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He's pro-open borders for immigration, even though he's pro-lockdown for citizens.
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And he's pro-censorship on that last point, you know.
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So, it's been almost a week since Justin Trudeau and Stephen Gilboa released the worst censorship
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With harsher penalties, more powers, deeper regulation than anything else outside of unfree
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And neither O'Toole nor his critic on the file, Alain Reyes, has so much as said a word
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I can understand taking one day to read the fine print, though we all knew what was coming
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They're really not opposing it almost a week into it now.
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O'Toole's putting out statements every few hours, reminiscing about the Calgary Stampede
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And he's got something to say about Prince Edward Island potatoes, but not a word about the largest
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The last word on it is this speech from his critic calling for more censorship.
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There's nothing in this bill that allows for the regulation of social media or platforms
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And it's clear we would have liked to have seen this in the bill.
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The minister even says we have to find a way of preventing hate speech, conspiracy theories
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But right now in the bill, unfortunately, we won't even be able to amend it in that aspect
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Can you please tell me, serious question asked in good faith, can you please tell me what
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the difference is between the Erin O'Toole Conservatives and the Trudeau Liberals?
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Seriously, other than blue team, red team, is there any difference?
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The whole meme, a truck that's falling apart, feels like some ad agency guy in Toronto came
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I'm just not sure it's going to resonate or be effective.
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I think it's just for Unifor and the bailout journalists who work for it to signal to Trudeau
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that they're on his side and that Trudeau will like it.
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And so he should keep showering them with money.
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In a way, it's like everything Unifor journalists do.
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It's for one viewer, the guy who pays the annual bailout to them.
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It's all of them, by the way, even the National Post, which started as an explicitly conservative
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Did you know that just last month their reporters voted to join a far-left union and got a bargaining
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Unifor just signed a labor agreement with them last month that is so left-wing, so woke,
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it specifically includes racial preferences for hiring reporters.
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Other than Rex Murphy and Conrad Black, who are both despised by most of the staff there,
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is there any reason to read the National Post anymore?
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It's so sad, and I say that as someone who was on their editorial board for two years
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So you've got the National Post, and most daily newspapers across the country, you've got the
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Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the Toronto Sun, you've got CTV, Global News, Sing Tao,
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the Chinese newspaper, Maclean's Magazine, the London Free Press, Ontario's TVO, provincial
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Oh, by the way, the rival journalism union, the Canadian Media Guild, also runs anti-conservative
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Also, as to the ad itself, I think it's sort of dumb, but surely it wasn't designed to
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It's designed to mock people like me, mock people like you.
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I don't drive a pickup truck, but it's clear that the message of Unifor is that only stupid
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I wonder if it's a coincidence that Marcus G., a Globe and Mail columnist, where Unifor
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runs the place, just last week wrote a bizarre op-ed called, Pickup Trucks are a Plague on
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Here's Trudeau's CBC state broadcaster on the same theme.
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So are all these news stories, is it news that pickup trucks are evil?
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Well, because they're not marked as political ads, even though some of them are run in uniform
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I mean, are they ads or are they real journalistic editorials?
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Like I say, almost every political reporter in Canada is a member of a union, either Unifor
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or the Canadian Media Guild, whose members vote to spend their own union dues attacking
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So in the morning, they use their own money to make an attack ad like that one.
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And then in the afternoon, they run an unbiased, objective, fair news story about the same
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issues, same talking points about pickup trucks.
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You know, the Calgary Herald, which is part of the branch plant of Post Media, it's the
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They ran a weird editorial the other day demanding that lockdowns be brought back in Alberta,
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saying that Alberta was throwing children under the bus by allowing them to return to school
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It was signed by Shawna MacDonald, who they described as a Calgary mother of two.
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But that's not quite the totality of who Shawna MacDonald is.
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It's probably not her defining characteristic in regards to this op-ed.
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But she just happens to be the boss of a major PR firm called Brookline, whose clients include
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lockdown profiteers like Amazon.com, as well as various government or quasi-government clients.
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Why did Trudeau's Calgary Herald run her pro-lockdown op-ed without disclosing her real identity
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That Unifor ad against Erin O'Toole is a bit anti-Western and a bit anti-working class.
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It's also a weird attack on pickup trucks, which are made by some Unifor members.
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It's designed to appeal to Eastern Canadian prejudices against Western things and conservative
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things, even though Erin O'Toole isn't Western or conservative himself.
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But my main beef with that ad is it was bought and paid for by the activists and donors who
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go on TV and say with a straight face that they're reporters.
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No wonder so few Canadians trust the media anymore.
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I'm always amazed by how Democrats managed just to brazen it through whatever the scandal
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My jaw dropped a few months back when it was Ralph Northam, the governor of Virginia, who
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And I'm not quite sure which one it was, if it was him in the Klan outfit or him in blackface.
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Either way, not a good look for someone from Virginia.
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Well, he toughed it out and he remains the governor of Virginia.
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Justin Trudeau basically admitted to sexually assaulting Rose Knight in Creston, B.C.
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But when he was asked about it, he just said, well, she experienced it differently.
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This lesson that we are learning in, and I'll be blunt about it, often a man experiences an
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interaction as being benign or not inappropriate.
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And a woman, particularly in a professional context, can experience it differently.
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Which is why the news that Governor Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York State, has
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been found by a Democrat attorney general to have systematically harassed and groped women
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in his orbit, I am quite certain that he'll weather the storm as all leftists do, deny
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nothing, explain nothing, just keep on trucking and what's the media going to do after a day
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or so, I want to show you a little bit of that.
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And remember, this is the man that Joe Biden was seriously considering making his attorney
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general, a man whose daily press conferences about the pandemic won him an Emmy Award, a
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man that pundits on the left said, turn them into Cuomo sexuals.
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Little did they know that Cuomo sexual, well, that's what he is.
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Let's hear, take a listen to the attorney general.
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The news and pieces of evidence reveal a deeply disturbing yet clear picture.
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Governor Cuomo sexually harassed current and former state employees in violation of both
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The independence investigation found that Governor Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women, many
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of whom were young women, by engaging in unwanted groping, kisses, hugging, and by making inappropriate
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Further, the governor and his senior team took actions to retaliate against at least one former
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employee for coming forward with her story, her truth.
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Governor Cuomo's administration fostered a toxic workplace that enabled harassment and created
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a hostile work environment where staffers did not feel comfortable coming forward with
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complaints about sexual harassment due to a climate of fear.
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Here's a little bit more from the press conference today.
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Break down as to what had happened, and they were the ones that reported the conduct to
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The governor also several times inappropriately touched a state trooper assigned to the unit
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In an elevator, while standing behind the trooper, he ran his finger from her neck down her spine
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Another time, she was standing holding the door open for the governor.
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As he passed, he took his open hand and ran it across her stomach from her belly button
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She told us that she felt completely violated to have the governor touch her, as she put it,
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The governor also inappropriately touched women who were attending work-related events
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At one event in September 2019, while having his picture taken with an employee of a state
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entity, the governor grabbed this young woman's butt.
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At another event in May of 2017, the governor pressed and ran his fingers across the chest
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of a woman while reading the name of her company whose logo was on her chest.
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The governor also engaged in a widespread pattern of subjecting women to unwanted hugs and kisses
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and touching them in ways that made them uncomfortable.
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You know, it's something about these male feminists.
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Whenever someone says so noisily that they're male feminists, well, there's just a chance that
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they're preemptively trying to head off your criticism of their actual sexual misconduct.
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I refer, of course, to Harvey Weinstein, the Democrat male feminist from Hollywood, and
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Bill Clinton, who's credibly been accused of rape.
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Well, Andrew Cuomo, perhaps in concert with his CNN brother, Chris Cuomo, thought the best
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way to defend against these charges was to say, hey, I grope everybody.
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The New York Times published a front page picture of me touching a woman's face at a wedding
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I've been making the same gesture in public all my life.
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I actually learned it from my mother and from my father.
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Indeed, there are hundreds, if not thousands of photos of me using the exact same gesture.
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I do it with everyone, black and white, young and old, straight and LGBTQ, powerful people,
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friends, strangers, people who I meet on the street.
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After the event, the woman told the press that she took offense at the gesture.
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Another woman stated that I kissed her on the forehead at our Christmas party and that I said,
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Now, I don't remember doing it, but I'm sure that I did.
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On occasion, I do slip and say, sweetheart or darling or honey.
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That doesn't quite answer the way he treated the women as described by the investigations.
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Here to help figure this out is a lifelong New Yorker, our friend Pamela Geller, the author
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Do you think he's going to brazen it out like so many Democrats before him?
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I don't think Andrew Cuomo is capable of not brazen it out.
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I mean, listen, first of all, you have to understand the atmosphere, the zeitgeist in
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We have to understand this is the city of Tammany Hall and Boss Tweed.
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This is the city that actually voted to secede from the Union to stand with the South.
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We have always politically been on the wrong side of history.
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And once again, we see power without accountability.
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The idea that he was grabbing asses, I'm sorry, that's what he was doing.
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I mean, we had a situation where an overheard conversation between two macho guys became a
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cause celeb across the world over something that, let's say, President Trump said.
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This guy, you know, there were 179 witnesses that testified in this investigation.
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Letitia James, who has made it her career to chase President Trump, she wants his tax returns
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They provided a report with ample proof, ample evidence.
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And, you know, it reminds me of when Michelle Obama held up a sign and tweeted it out, bring
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This idea that I use the word sweetheart, we're not talking about that.
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And when he was denying it, I couldn't help the hairs on the back of my neck standing up
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because he literally sounded like those child pedophiles saying, she liked it.
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That he's not kicked out on his keister is indicative of the low state of this double
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This is the man that demanded that Kavanaugh be investigated, that said in a 2013 tweet
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And the fact that his brother, Fredo, Chris Cuomo, drafted statements for his embattled
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But listen, the Crescent News Network, CNN, the corrupt news network is never going to do
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And worse still is the the spineless, gutless rhinos that do nothing.
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Even here in New York, you know, there's a congressional delegation that wants to remove him.
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But the Democrats won't even let the Republicans parlay or be members of this commission.
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We are choking to death under this yoke of totalitarianism.
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And those girls, they suffered for a long time because you know what?
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We saw that when we saw these young BDS activists going over to Gaza and getting raped and getting
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molested, but they were told, don't say anything because it'll it'll it'll make them, you know,
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So you're supposed to sacrifice yourself in the cause of the Democrat agenda.
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Her press conference, Attorney General James and then his denial.
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It's it's a glaring example to the American people of just how double standard
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Yeah, I mean, she clearly Letitia James, Attorney General, clearly said that he broke a number
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And yet, if she's not proceeding against him, if that's what I'm understanding from you,
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then it's obvious that this is designed for her to save face, for her to say, I am still
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on the hunt for predators, but not to actually make a difference, not to hold him to account,
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And it reminds me, I mean, yeah, great point of Michelle Obama holding up a sign, bring
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And it reminds me when James Comey issued his report on the Hillary Clinton emails and
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There's something shocking about people in power who have the ability to do something to
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It looks pretty bad if only someone would have done something.
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I think the whole thing is designed to have a bump in the road for him, and it'll blow
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It's another lesson in people with the right political identity just getting a pass from
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And we see once again that the feminist movement is a phony movement.
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When it comes to women's rights, I mean, real women's rights, whether it's not wanting to
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wear a hijab, yes, or coming out against a popular leftist figure, an iconic figure,
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One must throw themselves under the bus in the cause of Democrat totalitarianism.
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The fact that President Biden, and I use that in quotes, hasn't made a statement, and she
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was asked, Jen, Jen was asked, circle back, Jen was asked, and I'm sure circle back, Jen
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But the idea that there's just no accountability and there's no outrage, and this is just, you
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know, another news story, like you said, a bump in the road, this guy should be relegated
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But no, it's the truth tellers that are marginalized, demonized, libeled, slandered, and relegated
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All this talk about cancel culture, all this talk, you and I were canceled, okay, in 2006.
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And because it was ignored, because it was sanctioned, we're at this point now.
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And so, you know, you let Andrew Cuomo get away with this, ladies, then you're going to
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And the only thing I'm surprised he didn't say was, well, you know, her skirt was very
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Now, of course, Kamala Harris got her start, her breakthrough in politics by having an affair
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And I raise that only in that we had some Democratic women go to authorities here, just like some
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Democrat or some actresses in Hollywood complained about Harvey Weinstein.
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They said, all right, I mean, we don't know who went further than a grope with Governor
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It sounds to me like he was propositioning anything in sight.
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And we know about the women who objected to it, but we don't know who got an appointment
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to high office to, I mean, the governor has an enormous power in who he appoints to what
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We don't know who took the deal, so to speak, the casting couch deal, the way Kamala Harris
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did, the way actresses with Harvey Weinstein did.
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And I think the worst part is that the Me Too movement was a fraud from the beginning.
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It was about men that were not powerful, but anyone who had true power, Bill Clinton to
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First of all, I think Andrew Cuomo is a deeply sick man.
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I wouldn't be surprised if he had an inflatable doll in his office.
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And to your point, I mean, Kamala Harris was the original, the OG super spreader.
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She has a very, very, what euphemism should I, flamboyant reputation.
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And again, to your point, where are the feminists?
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And it makes it particularly hard for women that are straight.
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I'm talking about in their dealings, that, you know, want to get ahead on a meritocracy,
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want to get ahead on the hard work that they do.
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So I think we should all watch this very carefully and take away from it that we are not represented.
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And we have to, A, ensure elections, because he will get elected again.
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Because this state is completely and utterly corrupt.
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If you go, and I do, and vote, many times there's not even a Republican in the GOP column.
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And I can tell you that I wish they did an audit in this state.
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Because Trump got, I don't know if he won, but every person that I spoke to on my line,
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every Uber driver, every delivery person, every person that works.
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I'm not talking about that, the pantheon of limousine liberals.
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Every working man, whatever color, creed, or religion, whenever I,
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and I would always ask everyone, who are you voting for?
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If we had that, we wouldn't have these problems.
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We wouldn't have these dictatorial Schumers and Pelosi's that never, ever leave office.
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We need term limits, and we need to take control.
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The country is in free fall, and the country is out of control.
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We saw how he pulled the United Conservative Party leftward.
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He also doesn't want to use the separation card either.
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You know, Alberta was the best province in Canada on the lockdown
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until they panicked and became the worst province in Canada
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in regards to the lockdown, throwing four pastors in prison.
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Brutal, bizarre, unscientific lockdown superstitions, really.
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But now they've dropped all that other than their vengeance lawsuits
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But in terms of other than those vengeance lawsuits,
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I think the rest of the country is going to try and break Alberta's spirit
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because if Alberta becomes like the Florida of Canada,
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you're going to see a lot of mobile talent move there.
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What I mean by that is if you can uproot from a lockdown place
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like Ontario is the worst, you will if you don't have deep attachments,
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if you have the kind of job that's rather portable.
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I think you're going to see Alberta become a magnet if they don't flop back.
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It's very much in the interest of the public health deep state
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if you can just hold the line, if you can weather the storm,
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Well, I mean, that's what has been said for two generations now.
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I mean, it was Pierre Trudeau who brought in the National Energy Program
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that spawned the Western Canada concept that actually elected a provincial MLA.
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So how long is the future going to be separatism?
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If Alberta separates from Canada, I am moving there.
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I mean, will Alberta be free if it would be independent?
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I think in many ways it would be free from Ottawa's meddling,
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But remember that so many of the disasters in that province were done to itself,
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including by the NDP, which were the government for four years.
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Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters,
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to you at home, good night, and keep fighting for freedom.
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Let's get to the antigを on behalf of all of us here.
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We'll lay down at five Thankfullyin Poughlinchuk betty-
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Where's when we're failing at this time when we're trying to manage