EZRA LEVANT ｜ Welcome to 2023： Let's start the year looking at my nine favorite clips from 2022
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Summary
In this episode of the Ezra Levant Show, Ezra talks about his favorite videos of the year, including the best and the worst, and why he thinks the Freedom Trucker Rebellion was the greatest story of the decade. He also talks about the impact of the "green shoots" that appeared after the forest fire that destroyed everything in its path.
Transcript
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Hello, my Rebels. Today is something that I haven't done yet. It's my nine, I'm not going
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to say favorite videos of 2022, but nine videos that I think represent the year,
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including the best and the worst. That's ahead. But first, let me invite you to become a subscriber
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to Rebel News Plus. It's the video version of this broadcast. I think it's especially important
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today since we have such a video focused show. Just go to rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe.
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It's eight bucks a month. We need that money because we don't take any money from the government.
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So we rely on supporters like you. All right. Here's today's podcast. Thanks.
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Welcome to 2023. Let's start with looking at my nine favorite clips from 2022. It's January 2nd,
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You're fighting for freedom. Shame on you, you sensorism bug.
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Welcome back. Well, it's January 2nd, so it's a statutory holiday. So we've given the staff the
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day off. We'll all be back at work tomorrow. Well, actually, I'm going to take a couple of days.
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But as you know, we like to do shows even on stat holidays. So I'm pre-recording this
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before the break. And when I think of the news stories of 2022, there was only really one
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that was larger than all stories combined. And it was the Trucker Rebellion, the Freedom Convoy,
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that not only was news in itself, but it freed so many Canadians. It broke the mindset of conformity,
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the false consciousness that the propaganda media tried to impart that we all agreed to things
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and that only weird extremists didn't like being locked down, didn't like vaccine mandates,
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didn't like being banned from going to funerals or weddings or the gym or restaurants or being able
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to travel. So the truckers were definitely the story of 2022. And not only were they,
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the story and did they help free us, but they forced Justin Trudeau to reveal his true colors
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as a bit of a fascist imposing martial law. I think the truckers are the story of the year
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for 2022. And hopefully they'll inspire us into 2023. You know, I was thinking about it because
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here we are in 2023 and we feel free again, not totally free, but freer. For example, you still
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can't travel to the United States if you're not jabbed. That's a bizarre rule that of course
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Joe Biden imposes. Maybe the new Congress will lift it soon. But, you know, after a blazing forest fire
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that torches everything in its path, very soon green shoots begin to emerge from the black earth. I don't
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know if you've ever been in a forest after a forest fire, but, you know, in a matter of weeks,
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life starts to return. And I feel that that's how it is in Canada. Everything was torched. It was a civil
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liberties inferno and they did such great damage to us. And though the green shoots are back and then
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from the outside, life looks like it's returned to normal. I think that there is lasting damage
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to our civil liberties and there's a lot of wrongs that still need to be righted. But I want to remind
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you of what I thought were the top stories of 2022. I've selected nine little clips here
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and half of them, of course, are from the truckers. These are some of the nine most interesting videos
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of the year. The first is before the trucker convoy even arrived in Ottawa, we knew it was
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important. We knew it was a grassroots rebellion. We knew that all parties, including Erin O'Toole's
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conservatives opposed it. But we knew it was history in the making and we embedded journalists
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in the convoy, even as it was rolling towards Ottawa. Here's our first video when we were
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Hey guys, it's Spencer Bouts here. I'm from Middle Lakes, Saskatchewan by Humboldt's Aspertoon area.
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I just joined up with the convoy in Saskatchewan, guys, there a couple of days ago and we've been
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rolling hard, rolling strong, meeting up with lots of truckers and lots of four-wheelers here,
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growing this convoy real big, real fast. The support is unbelievable.
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I'm just really proud to see so many people coming together when our healthcare system kind
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of took a hit and nobody was really standing up for the healthcare workers. So it's really amazing
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to see everyone coming together like this. And I'm hoping that once everybody gets to Ontario,
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they'll see how many people are with us and they'll see that there's really not a whole lot
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they're going to be able to do without saying, we can't take any more of this.
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Here in solidarity with every Canadian, with every father, every mother that had been subjugated
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to this tyranny because we have to start naming things the way they are. This is not about
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mandates and regulations. This is not about saving lives. This is about control. They are destroying
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We are right now in front of the Supreme Court of Canada. As you can hear, the truckers are already
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here as expected. They were officially to be here tomorrow morning, but they have already
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come. I think they have caught the police and the government unprepared because the government
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undermined the number of protesters. Justin Trudeau said it's just a fringe minority.
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They have done it. They really did it. And this is not even 1% of the truckers who have come
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here. This is only, this is only a couple of them. Here's a sign that reads all that is necessary
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for the tribe of evil. Is that good man do nothing. This is right now Ottawa, Canada's capital.
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Trucks all across the country have come down to show their resistance.
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Why are you here today? We need freedom, man. Freedom? Yep. Okay. He's here for freedom.
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Where did you come from? Orangeville. Why are you here today? Freedom. Freedom? That's it?
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That's it. That's all, man. That's all we want as Canadians. Freedom.
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Freedom, freedom. Freedom, freedom! Freedom, freedom, freedom! Freedom, freedom, got come from me.
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Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom! Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom! Freedom, freedom, freedom! Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom!
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Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom, on ourlands, mein Women's Wall, freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom!
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Well, by the time the trucks arrived in Ottawa, the whole country knew it was important and the
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media that were ignoring the trucker protests knew they couldn't anymore. I went there personally.
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Oh my God, it was cold. I wanted to see with my own eyes because I just didn't trust the
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mainstream media. And I wanted to see how important a story this would be to Rebel News. And we knew it
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was important. I was down there in Parliament Hill and the truckers invited me to hop up on their
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makeshift stage to give a quick speech. I did. My speech was only a minute long, but I feel like
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in the moment I summed up how I thought things were going. People were saying, well, what do we do?
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What's the point? Do we try and change the government somehow? And I said, no, you don't
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understand. That's not how it works. But simply just by being here and proving that you exist and
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that you can tell a story that is off narrative with the establishment. Well, here's my one minute
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speech to the truckers where I said they already succeeded just by being there. Take a look.
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Everybody recognize this guy? Does anybody know the name Ezra LeVant?
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Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for Ezra LeVant of Rebel News.
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Thank you very much. Hello, everybody. It is cold today. It is cold today. Almost as cold as
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Justin Trudeau's hearts. It's great to be here. And on behalf of Rebel News, I salute you.
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And I say keep speaking truth to power. But I want to tell you what excites me the most about this
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crowd. I see a lot of cameras, a lot of independent journalists, because when people say what do we
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do about the media, I say you become the media. That's what you do. The media acts like a party.
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The media party. It's a subsidiary of the Liberal Party. So you've got to tell the story yourselves.
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Everyone who is here, everyone who is along the road, has to bear witness and testify to what
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they saw. Because there's two competing narratives. The government says you're racist. The government
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says you're sexist. The government says you're violent. In the meantime, I've never seen a more
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And far from violence, people want to not be violated anymore.
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Justin Trudeau says you're extreme. But he's the one who has violated our civil rights.
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He says you're a fringe. Well, that's a pretty bloody big fringe.
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Let me close by saying this. Someone asked me this morning, what's the point? What's going to happen?
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Why did we all gather in Ottawa? Is he going to listen? Is he going to resign? Is the Governor
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General going to ask him to step down? No, he'll hold on to power as hard as he can.
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Let me tell you what I think the point is. The point is the convoy itself. To show that
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you're not alone. To show that you're not the crazy one they are. To show that you're not
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the crazy one they are. You already achieved your goal just by being here. And the fact that
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millions of dollars came into the GoFundMe for the truckers, even if they would have cancelled
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that, it was still a success. Because it was a measurement of how much people cared. You
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have succeeded just by being here. He got the fight. Congratulations to the organizers. But
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really, it was millions of Canadians along the way in the convoy and watching today from
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home. Tell them what happened. Tell them what you saw. Because they will not hear the truth
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from anyone else. Keep up the fight, everybody. Keep fighting for freedom. Let's go! Let's go,
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baby! Let's go, baby! Let's go, baby! Let's go, baby! Let's go! Woo!
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All right, are you going to tell a little story?
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I was very grateful to be given that opportunity to talk to them. It was a thrill to be amongst our
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people. The kind of people that the Trudeau government would call, well, what Hillary Clinton
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called the deplorables. The Trudeau government and their repeaters in the media called these folks
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racist and misogynist and transphobes and whatever else they said. But to me, that was just proof that
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we were on the dry track. And we deployed Rebel News in a big way. You've heard me say that we had
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reporters like Lincoln Jay and Alexa Lavoie worked 23 days straight. We didn't ask them to. They just
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knew that that was their destiny. They were writing history in the making. Of course, these days by
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writing, I mean they were videoing it. It was all on video. And that's why people knew we were telling
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the truth and the media party was lying. I want to show you some video of Lincoln and Alexa literally
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walking around that city and showing you that it had become like an authoritarian, totalitarian regime
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with whimsical police at every street corner demanding to see your papers, demanding to see
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what hotel you were at and deciding yes or no, whether you could pass or even if you'd be arrested.
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It truly was like you were in East Germany and some secret police were demanding your papers.
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This is an excerpt from a live stream of our reporters literally walking the streets and showing
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the world what Canada had become under Justin Trudeau. Take a look.
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Where are you going? Holt Hotel. You got your reservation?
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Uh, no, no, we are not part of the protest. I'm sorry.
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Can you let you pass through here if you don't have reservations?
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Oh, I think I'm, according to this, I'm only 670 years away from them.
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Yeah, that's a lot more blocks though than, than I, than what I have here.
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It's booked under, it's booked under our colleague's name, so we would have to...
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Well, I, I need the reservation with the name of the person that's rented the room.
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And then proof that it's, they've rented it for you, right?
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Is, is there any reason for this? You know we're not demonstrators, ma'am. We're, we're members of the media.
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If you wanted to come through for the media, perfect.
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You could get that authorization through the Ottawa City Police.
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Just give them a phone, they give you authorization to get down.
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So we're kind of like Australia now, our colleague, Abby, you're me.
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You always have to get a permit to perform journalism down there.
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You just want to get, you just want to get your hotel, that's why.
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Folks, this is bad policing. Even if there are orders to keep out the deplorables, you know, the protesters, they know who we are. We've shown them our media credentials.
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Uh, this is petty. This is vindictive. This does nothing to bolster, uh, the trust of police by the public.
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Um, and here she comes again. So let's, let's see if we can...
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So, what Justice would suggest, get a slip from them, take your register there, and then you're quick and easy through them.
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Remember, it was the Ottawa police that locked down Ottawa, not the truckers.
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Well, of course, there were other protests copying the Ottawa truckers in other places.
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The Windsor Bridge between Windsor and Detroit, the Ambassador Bridge, it was called.
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And of course, the Coutts blockade between Alberta and Montana.
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We had two reporters who, again, detected that something was afoot.
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We went down there early, and we were embedded with the men in the saloon at that border town for nine days straight and more.
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Here's an excerpt from a documentary movie we made about the subject.
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The other officers that are moving into position now are going to start taking enforcement action.
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So, if you are of the mind that you will be placed under arrest and your truck seized, that sort of thing,
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I guess the next best thing is to go out there and present yourself.
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RCMP moved in this afternoon trying to break up the tense four-day border blockade at Coutts.
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But it backfired, and at this hour, the standoff in southern Alberta continues.
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I guess the checkpoints that were the RCMP standoff, they needed the extra guys to come here.
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So, the checkpoints were completely open, and the entire convoy that were blocked by that checkpoint is now on the way here.
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So, the RCMP will have to deal with many, many more truckers who are on their way to support this blockage at the border.
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Oh, it has to be seen by the true and more strong and free.
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I don't know how they're going to get past this, to be honest with you.
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This is something I don't know, I've certainly never seen before.
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They are now moving and they are blocking the highway just behind these trucks here.
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Basically like they're with their bodies or are you like are they, what are they doing?
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Right now they have just moved into this area here so actually the RCMP and our peers have withdrawn a bit.
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The RCMP officers were trying to force the first group of drivers to leave this afternoon when a second convoy cut off the rest of the highway.
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The group says it's refusing to leave until all COVID-19 health restrictions are left.
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The RCMP officers were trying to force the first group of drivers to leave this afternoon.
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The RCMP officers were trying to force the first group of drivers to leave this afternoon when a second convoy cut off the rest of the highway bypassing an RCMP checkpoint.
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The group says it's refusing to leave until all COVID-19 health restrictions are lifted.
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As you know, the worst day in our eight year existence happened during the trucker convoy.
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Our dear reporter from Quebec, Alexa Lavois was peacefully filming a peaceful protest.
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But the police had decided to carry out Justin Trudeau's brutal will.
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And a police officer casually aimed a riot gun at Alexa and shot her at point blank range.
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You can find out more about that lawsuit at StandWithAlexa.com.
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I'm showing you this video, even though it disturbs me every time I do, because we have to be disturbed.
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Like I say, a forest fire torched our whole country.
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And even though it feels free again and green shoots are emerging, we cannot forget what was done to us by Trudeau.
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Hey, everyone on the front line, turn your back to the breakout.
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You're not going to deny me the right to look at them in.
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Bring her to the left here, it's safe, come on now, get her out of the crowd.
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Get her down further, get her down, get her out of the crowd.
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By the way, if you ever hear a mainstream media journalist ever complain about mean tweets
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or someone swearing at them, and I don't advocate swearing at journalists, but this is the level
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If they talk about mean tweets but do not mention how Alexa was shot by police or David Menzies
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was beat up by Trudeau's personal bodyguards and on and on and on.
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If they talk about their mean tweets without referencing our Rebel News journalists who
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were actually attacked, you know they're wicked liars.
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Well, the convoy wasn't the only story we covered in 2022.
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Once the flight ban on unvaxxed people was lifted, Rebel News journalists started to fly
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around the world because, of course, other countries had already dropped their vaccine
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We sent three reporters, Alexa Lavois, Tamara Ugolini, and of course, Drea Humphrey to Berlin
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That was the first in-person meeting of all the public health tyrants, and we were there.
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I think we were the only journalists from Canada in the place.
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Tamara Ugolini here with Rebel News, and I am in Germany at the swanky Berlin Hotel in
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Central District where the World Health Summit 2022 is taking place in partnership with the
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I've just asked the Director General of the WHO, that's the controversially appointed bureaucrat,
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Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, a question regarding the global lockdown policies his organization
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The risk of returning to lockdown remains very real if countries do not manage the transition.
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The only way I was able to bring you this report was by reserving one night at this posh hotel
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because our media accreditation was rejected by the World Health Summit controllers.
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And none of this trip, including this fancy one-night stay, would be possible without your
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If you think that it is crucial to hold these bureaucrats to account for their failed and devastating
00:26:42.880
policies, then head on over to that website and help offset our costs, again at rebelwho.com.
00:26:50.880
Now, after arriving at the hotel, I was able to get a feel for the crowd after what looked like
00:26:54.880
some sort of cozy setting of high tea and refreshments.
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If you could do lockdowns again, would you do them?
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If you could do lockdowns again, would you support them?
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Mr. Tedros, if you could do lockdowns again, would you support them?
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That's what you got for unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats heading in there to the WHO conference,
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Tedros was nervously laughing behind his medical mask.
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As you can see, his handler quickly got in the way once she realized that I was skeptical
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Should these bureaucrats be held responsible for their failed policies that have resulted
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grotesque harm of people all across the globe, with looming economic devastation, loss of
00:27:58.880
And if no one is here to ask the hard questions, then how will the public ever know?
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Follow our reports as we try to show you how the top 1% whines and dines while you're told
00:28:11.880
to shutter your business, stay home endlessly, all for the alleged greater good.
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That stands for World Health Organization Reports.
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There's other strange things afoot, like climate lockdowns and a farming lockdown of sorts.
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It really kicked off in the Netherlands, where the government suddenly decided they were
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going to eliminate up to a third of the country's farms because they were using too much nitrogen.
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We sent rebel reporters over there to document what we called the farmer rebellion, which I'm
00:28:58.880
afraid will likely come to Canada, too, as Trudeau copies their anti-farmer agenda.
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Here's an excerpt from our trip to the farmer rebellion.
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To increase prosperity and improve public health, but also to build back better.
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If the demands from the farmers are not met, what do you think happens next?
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I think there's going to be farmers today or tomorrow.
00:29:49.880
They go to their homes and they say, if you don't come there, we come to you.
00:29:52.880
Well, I know the farmers a bit and if they draw a line in the sand, they draw a line in the sand.
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But I think there's going to be a small civil war.
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I can imagine it's going to be a lot of mayhem.
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Head on over to farmerdocumentary.com where you can purchase tickets to watch our Rebel News' new premiere titled The Boer Dutch Farmer Rebellion, hosted by none other than Sheila Gunn-Reed and a Q&A session with myself, Linken Jay, who is with me in the Netherlands to cover the Farmer Rebellion.
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and Kian Simone, who is the writer and producer of this new premiere.
00:30:48.860
There was strange and bizarre and humorous material, too.
00:30:51.800
Well, it's funny from our point of view, but imagine being a student in a classroom with a teacher who wears enormous prosthetic breasts.
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It's a man dressed up as a caricature of a woman.
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Well, our David Menzies has been reporting on this story at great length, and he even, for shock effect,
00:31:17.540
dressed up like that teacher and went to the school board meeting just to show them how offensive it was.
00:31:22.220
They escorted him out and banned him from the building.
00:31:24.660
That's what they did to David dressed up that way, but they still allow that bizarre teacher to teach.
00:31:30.960
I'd like to present a petition called Protect the Students.
00:31:40.080
It reads, the Halted District School Board and the Director of Education.
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A normal person in the right mind would dress up like that and go teach kids.
00:32:02.740
You're going to be comfortable when your granddaughters are sitting at a school and that's their teacher?
00:32:09.800
And folks, in just a few hours, the next Halted District School Board trustee meeting is going to take place.
00:32:19.000
I want to ask questions about that ongoing circus that's happening at Oakville Trafalgar High School, namely Busty Lemieux.
00:32:31.260
He breaks every shop rule in question and questions abound.
00:32:36.720
Is this legitimately a person transitioning or is this someone pulling a cosmic prank or is this someone suffering from mental illness?
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And if it's the latter, he needs treatment as soon as possible.
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Anyways, I can tell you that more than 16,000 of you have signed our petition, protect the students.
00:33:01.980
And they need protection because you can see his completely inappropriate attire that he wears to shop class.
00:33:10.660
By the way, something, if it was a female student that was wearing this, she would be disciplined or suspended.
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But believe it or not, folks, there is no dress code for the staff.
00:33:21.280
In any event, I desperately want to go to the school board meeting, but just one hitch.
00:33:26.140
Look what happened last month when I showed up.
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The Lemieux story was in the news cycle for five days.
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Heather Francie, a communications director who doesn't communicate.
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I'm not even sure if they're going to let me in the building or whether their security or even police.
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Accomplices are going to keep them protected from impolite questions such as why did they allow Stephen Hanna, an innocent teacher, to be misidentified for several days before they corrected the record.
00:34:32.080
The saying goes, if you can't beat him, join him.
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So let's do the Linda Carter thing and see if the menzoid can transition himself.
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I'd like to present a petition called Protect the Students.
00:35:15.000
It reads, the Halton District School Board and the Director of Education, Curtis Innes, should be fired for allowing a female identifying job teacher to wear enormous fake breasts that are barely contained by see-through blouses while teaching.
00:35:39.880
Well, we ended the year with a very dramatic mission to Moscow, Russia.
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We took great care to make sure our reporter was not arrested.
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We slipped out of the country before we published our first video just so that there would be no police repercussions to us while we were under Russian rule.
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I think our reports were very fair and they were eye-opening to me, for example, the fact that Starbucks and McDonald's are still operating with the same buildings, the same staff.
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It was interesting to see Russians on the street being willing to criticize the war and Putin on camera.
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I thought they would be too afraid to say that for fear of repercussions.
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And there was one close call we had with police.
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Our reporter, Jeremy Lafredo, went to Moscow when he went to a grocery store and a gas station just to see if sanctions were having a bite.
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I'm Jeremy Lafredo for Rebel News in Moscow, Russia.
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We've been told that the Western sanctions against Russia are bringing the economy to its knees.
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Essential goods like cheese, milk, bread and meat are all markers of how well the economy is doing.
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Well, I'm going to go to a grocery store in Moscow and see if the shelves are bare and see if things are expensive or not.
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...leveled against Russia by the U.S. and its allies are the harshest ever handed down.
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The Russians are dealing with some hefty international sanctions levied against the country.
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And their effects are being widely felt in Russia.
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After touching down in Moscow, the first thing I decided to do was get some food.
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The New York Times reported that the Western sanctions against Russia are leading to essential goods scarcity.
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And the Washington Post went as far as saying that Russia is facing, quote, Soviet-era shortages.
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So I went to a grocery store here in Russia to get the whole story and some food.
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And to experience firsthand the reported scarcity and Soviet-style shortages.
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The grocery store I went to in Moscow was located inside of a shopping center.
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And to my surprise, the shopping center was filled with both regular consumer and luxury stores, all stocked.
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But this doesn't mean that the grocery store has food.
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These are separate types of goods from different places and different sanctions affect different things.
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It seemed like not only a normal grocery store, but it was absolutely full of food.
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Barilla pasta, which you can get at any grocery store in the States, was stacked so tall that I would need a ladder to reach the linguine.
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But I remained skeptical because surely the New York Times and the Washington Post wouldn't be lying.
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And of course, the seemingly full store could be a facade.
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There could only be one item in front of the shelf and nothing behind it.
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Another question was, how expensive is everything?
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Russian stores could have food, but with inflation and shortages, items could be so expensive that no one can afford it.
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They also had an entire bakery making fresh baked goods.
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They had beef, chicken, turkey, pork, and even rabbit.
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I settled for a pound of ground beef, which was 175 rubles, or $2.78.
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Strangely enough, the eggs were not kept refrigerated, but they did have dozens of choices.
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Then I decided to get some vegetables for my meat.
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A container of mushrooms for 79 rubles, or $1.25.
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The total for milk, eggs, beef, bread, and mushrooms was 499 rubles, or $7.92.
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Surprisingly, it seems the mainstream media is not being entirely truthful in regards
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to the effects sanctions are having on the prices of essential goods in Russia.
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Despite my experience, a few people I spoke to explained that the sanctions have had an
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This lady, from a rural market outside of Moscow, is selling produce.
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She explained that while most prices have stayed the same, the prices of some foods have
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And this man, who sells cranberries at the market, spoke to me about the prices of berries.
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This young woman told me that the idea that Russian people are suffering from sanctions
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But the uncertainty of everything has made people more serious about financial planning
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Another essential good pretty much all people use is gasoline.
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The prices of gasoline in the U.S. have skyrocketed since Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
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The U.S. refuses to buy oil from what they call a belligerent regime.
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But these policies actually fell hardest on the American people, since they're the ones
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Converted to U.S. metrics, that's about $2.75 per gallon.
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I spoke to a man from Moscow who drives for a living.
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For Rebel News in Moscow, Russia, I'm Jeremy LeFrey.
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You can see all of his reports at RussianReports.com.
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My nine representative clips of the year that was.
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Well, we're into 2023, and I hope it's a year of peace and freedom and prosperity for all of us.
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A year of independent journalism, of citizen journalism.
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Hopefully, this country will not regress into the, well, it truly was authoritarianism of Justin Trudeau.
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And you know we'll be fighting for freedom every day, as we always do.
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On behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, you heard me.
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You've got to keep fighting for freedom, my friends.
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You've got to keep fighting for freedom, my friends.