TV and radio stations you don’t listen to want money from you regardless — through another Trudeau media bail-out
Episode Stats
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Summary
Up to 200 Canadian radio and TV stations are about to go out of business, and 40 TV stations too. Why do you not trust the media? Do you trust what they tell you about events in the world, or do you trust the lies they tell us about them?
Transcript
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Hello my Rebels, did you see the news? According to Canada's TV and radio stations, up to 200 radio
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stations are about to go out of business and 40 TV stations too. Now don't cheer, I hear the
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cheering, don't cheer because those are people who have to get another job and I know there's a
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million waiters and shopkeepers and normal people who have to get a job too, but let's not delight
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in other people's misery. But of course these radio and TV stations are demanding a government
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bailout again. I'll take you through their begging letter. But first let me invite you to become a
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subscriber to Rebel News Plus. It's eight bucks a month and it's something that these other TV and
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radio stations refuse to do because I don't think they have a connection with their viewers and
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they've decided it's easier to ask for money directly from Trudeau than to try and convince
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viewers one at a time. We take the opposite point of view. We don't bother asking Trudeau for money
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that would compromise our ethics and our independence. So we ask you. So here's me asking.
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Go to rebelnews.com, click on subscribe. It's eight bucks a month or 80 for the whole year
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and it helps keep us strong and independent. Okay, here's the podcast.
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Tonight, TV and radio stations you don't listen to are demanding money from you anyways through a
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Trudeau bailout, just like the newspapers got. It's August 27th and this is the Ezra Levant 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 about why I publish it is because it's my bloody
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Do you trust radio and TV news? Guessing it depends on who you're listening to.
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There are some voices out there on the CBC that I don't just mistrust. I know in my bones
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they are active deceivers, that they are not the media at all in the Greek root of that word,
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media, the middleman, to simply pass on to you what is happening in the world without a filter.
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No, they are not about information. They're about disinformation.
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Here's a CNN example just from the other day. Violent riots and arson in the Wisconsin city of
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Kenosha torching the place and CNN says it's a mostly peaceful protest while the reporter is
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literally standing in front of a riot. We'll talk more about that video clip later today with Joel
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Pollack, but that's what I mean by misinformation. But my point is, I'm guessing that the past 10 or 20
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years has taught you that you just can't trust the media, or as I call it, the media party, because it
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travels in a pack. I remember growing up as a kid, this will date me, tell you how old I am,
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we lived outside the city of Calgary, so we didn't have cable, which back then was only about a dozen
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channels anyways. So we just had three channels that you could get over the air. Back then it meant
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the CBC, obviously, and two private channels. That's it. Three TV channels. Imagine that narrow
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bandwidth of opinion. Now the growth of talk radio in the 1990s really began to open up the conversation.
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It let people talk back for the first time. It was a huge U.S. phenomenon, talk radio. Canada's CRTC
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never really let talk radio flourish in Canada. They shut down any American voices pretty quickly
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that were too rambunctious by threatening any Canadian radio station that allowed too much freedom
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on their airwaves. They got rid of Dr. Laura. They got rid of Howard Stern, obviously. But still the
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any difference, there was a time when talk radio across Canada was actually mainly conservative.
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It's hard to believe now. It's a place conservatives could go in a way that TV would never let
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right of center voices in. There was a time when newspapers allowed a diversity of voices too.
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But that's when you had some competitors. In big cities, you sometimes had several newspapers.
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The idea of them taking money from the government was unthinkable. Yeah, good times, eh?
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Those were the days. Now it's the worst of all worlds. Post Media has a near monopoly
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in English Canada and they're the biggest welfare case in the newspaper world too.
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Obviously, the CBC is bigger than ever and now has more people in the news business at the CBC
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than the rest of the Canadian news business combined. And obviously, it's more partisan than ever. I don't
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even have to tell you this. The idea that the CBC's Ottawa politics reporter would sue the Conservative
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Party in her own name in the middle of the election while still leading the coverage of that election
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and that party is so shocking to normal people. The fact that it was surely approved by a dozen
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senior managers at the CBC and surely approved by the Liberal government on the sly shows just how
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far the media has tilted, not just to the left, but against the common sense of their viewers. But like I
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say, just like conservatives and skeptics fled to talk radio in the 1990s, they fled to alternative
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sources on the internet today. We at Rebel News are the biggest independent media company in Canada,
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not because we're technologically the best or have the biggest staff. We still have plenty of amateur
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moments to be candid, but we're number one because we're offering the other side of the story. We're
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not regulated by the CRTC. You know, on Sunday night, we competed head to head with Rosemary Barton
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and her massive staff and massive budget. When the Conservatives chose our new party leader,
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just me, Sheila Gunn-Reed and our producer, Justin, just the three of us, it was pretty low tech.
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We managed to get over a hundred thousand viewers that night. CBC got about 200,000 that night. And
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then over the course of the week, it grew past 300,000. But that night we had 50% of the number of
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viewers they had. They had 40 staff. They have a huge budget resources we just didn't have. And yet
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people watched us because really what conservative would go to Rosemary Barton and the CBC for news
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about the Conservatives? I would go to Rosemary Barton for news about her lawsuit against the
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Conservatives. She's an expert in that. I'd actually like to ask her a fair number of questions about
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that. Whose idea was it to sue the Conservatives? How long did she know she was going to be suing the
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Conservatives before she revealed it to the public? And during that period of time, what
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interviews did she do with Conservatives? What promises did she make, et cetera, when she was
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holding that news secret from them? What conversations did she have with the Liberal Party about organizing
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her lawsuit? So yeah, I am actually quite interested in Rosemary Barton's opinions about the Conservatives,
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but the idea of trusting her to tell me that's straight news? Oh my God, I'm not the only one who
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feels this way, by the way. As you can see, the CBC blocked their viewers from making any comments about
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their broadcast that night. Just blocked it, just banned it. Why? Well, of course, because they know
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viewers despise the CBC and their bias, and maybe more than a few would ask about Rosemary Barton's
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disgraceful, disqualifying lawsuit. Our viewers were the best part of our show, and they actually paid
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for our show through their voluntary Super Chat donations, that's what it's called. CBC doesn't need
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to do that, though. They just take your money through your taxes, and if you don't pay your taxes to the
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CBC, you go to jail. It's not just the CBC, though. It's all of the broadcasters in Canada.
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They're also hyper-regulated. Other than banks and airlines and tobacco companies, I don't think
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anything's more regulated in Canada than a CRTC-dominated broadcaster. What channels are offered,
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at what price, to whom, on what terms, all of that stuff. And in return, these companies get tremendous
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protection from the government. Mainly, their competitors are kept down. Like Sun News was
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killed by the CRTC, and certainly Fox News wouldn't be allowed up here. Any competitor would be stopped
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if it didn't toe the line. And remember, many of these TV channels aren't just broadcasters.
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They own cable companies, they own cell phone companies, internet companies. So they're super
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regulated, and they obviously care much more about cell phone money and cable and internet money
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than any news channel. I mean, there's just so much more money on the internet side. So
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they basically do whatever Justin Trudeau wants in their news stations, and they get taken care of
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in return. Which is why normal people just don't watch them anymore for news. We find our own news
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that's more trustworthy than CBC, CTV, Global, whatever. Global TV is truly worse than the CBC in many ways,
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and they have a special hatred for us at the Rebel. I don't know why. Global News literally cheered on
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the left-wing activist who punched our Sheila Gunn-Reed in the face during a women's march back
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in 2017. They wouldn't even call Sheila a reporter. It was so gross. They did the same thing again
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recently when David Menzies was attacked just a few weeks ago. I think that was in Peterborough,
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or sort of Kingston. Global News is bizarre and weird. They're even more pro-Trudeau than the CBC.
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They're trying to get something from Trudeau. I don't know what it is, but they're so weird these days.
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And my point in all this is, if you chase Trudeau for bailout money, you'll wind up tailoring your
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news coverage for him alone. And you'll leave behind millions of Canadians who really don't
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want to hear about Trudeau, or his propaganda, or they just want journalists to be independent.
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We all know we're being poorly served here by TV and radio in Canada. Why did a U.S. news magazine
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have to break the news in our last election about Trudeau's blackface photos?
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Because the Canadian media, who all had the photos and videos,
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they refused to do it. It was incredible. The media party all knew. They all had those photos and
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videos, but they were all in it together with their friend and paymaster, Justin Trudeau.
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In fact, when an American news source broke the story, the media party in Canada threw more
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reporters at grilling the Vancouver guy who passed the news on to an American journalist.
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They spent more time grilling that guy than grilling Trudeau himself. The media was furious
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that Canadians dared to go around the Canadian media gatekeepers. Yeah. Well, listen, you chose
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your North Star, Trudeau. Even the National Post is getting really weird because of their Trudeau cash.
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They've started a series that I've dubbed Tucker Carlson Watch. You can't even get Fox News or
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Tucker Carlson in Canada unless you specially order it. CNN's in basic cable. But the National Post
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is running Hillary Clinton style fact checks on Tucker Carlson in Canada. No, what are you doing?
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From a conservative newspaper? No, not really. From a newspaper that takes 140 grand a week from
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Trudeau. That's why. You see what I mean? Which brings me to today's news. Check out this.
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This is from Global News. Here's their headline. Hundreds of Canadian radio TV stations could close
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due to the coronavirus. Is that why? Hey, are you guys okay? Are all you media personalities over
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there? Do you need a tissue or something? Do you want to take a moment? Here's CTV with the same news.
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They say, media study says hundreds of Canadian radio stations, TV outlets risk closure.
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Are you guys okay? CTV? Those are the people who said that hockey players in Canada are by nature racist.
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I think it struck a nerve because I'm told he's a Canadian icon and he's a symbol of the great sport
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of hockey, which is the sport that unites us across this country. And that narrative is the one that
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strikes a nerve with me because I don't worship at the altar of hockey. I never have. And maybe it's
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because of where I grew up, but there's a, and going to a couple different universities, there's a certain
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type of person in my mind, in my experience who does. And they all tended to be white boys who weren't,
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um, let's say very nice. They were not generally thoughtful. They were often bullies. Uh, their parents
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were able to afford to put them, you know, spend $5,000 a year on minor hockey instead of $5,000, a lot of
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money. You can do other things besides spending your time in an arena. You can go on a trip and learn about the world,
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see other things, eh? You know, like it's, if the place is a, the world is a big place, maybe get
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tight out of that bubble. And for me, Don Cherry is the walking and talking representative of that type.
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I'm sure you guys might be going out of business. It's really, really sad. By the way, um, all these
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stations reporting this news, they paid for this. I'll tell you in a second where this news is coming
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from. They're not disclosing that in their headlines, are they? Hundreds of Canadian radio stations,
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TV outlets, risk closure, says media study, 40 local television outlets, 200 Canadian radio stations
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could close in the next three years. Now, I know, calm down. There's a lot of cheering going on.
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CBC writes this with some delight because they'll be the last people standing because of course they
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live completely off the government teat, $1.5 billion a year from Trudeau. They could survive
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if they please literally just one single viewer, Justin Trudeau himself. They don't care what the
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audience wants. They're laughing here. Now, before I read to you from this new study paid for by these
00:13:04.040
same media companies complaining about it, let me first say the obvious. Who cares? I'm not actually
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happy that these people will be canceled. Even the ones who want you and me to be canceled, the ones who
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call you and me racist or say that we deserve to be assaulted like David and Sheila were. I mean, look,
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everyone's got to earn a living. It's just tough to care about TV personalities being canceled when
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they love to cancel other people. It's like Wendy Mesley, the disgraced former broadcaster
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at the CBC. She made a living calling people racist falsely. Federal government cut your funding
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for research. Rebel Media came in and did a crowdfunding project for you, raised about $200,000.
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After Charlottesville and the riots, the protests there, many people cut ties with Rebel Media,
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including the Conservative leader Andrew Scheer, saying that it could be seen as giving hate
00:14:01.000
groups a platform. You still go on there. So I'm wondering, why do you go on Rebel Media after
00:14:08.880
Charlottesville? You don't think we should talk to people on the right?
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Turns out it was all projection again and again. When the cameras were off, Wendy Mesley used the
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N-word to describe black people. And the CBC knew she would use this word in meetings at the CBC
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again and again. And it was cool with them. It was only when her misconduct leaked that she was
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finally fired. So the CBC didn't care about the fact she was using the N-word. They just cared
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about the fact that it leaked to the public they were embarrassed. Same thing with Global News.
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They call everybody to the right of Trudeau racist. Well, lookie, lookie, look at this news just
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today. According to this story, Troy Reeb, the boss of Global News, simply fires visible minority
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journalists who complain about racism at Global News. At least the CBC fired the racist. Troy Reeb,
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the VP of Global News, fired the victims of racism. So I guess he got rid of the racism because he got
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rid of the minorities, huh? I don't know. He'll probably get away with it just like Trudeau gets
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away with blackface. But back to the news today. So this study paid for by these broadcasters
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shows that 40 television outlets and 200 radio stations could be gone. That's what the Canadian
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Association of Broadcasters. And again, to which I say, look, these folks have lived off a government
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monopoly for decades. It has been illegal to compete with them. You had to listen to them. You were forced
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to. So they took their customers for granted. I mean, what are you going to do? Listen to someone
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else? Ha ha, you can't. It won't work. That's the argument when I was a kid watching the three channels.
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But the argument started to fall apart a little bit when satellite radio became a thing. And now that
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argument's just dust. Now that we have a thousand radio and TV stations in our hand, in our cell phone.
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Listen to anything, watch anything, anytime, anywhere there's Wi-Fi or cell phone service. You know, most of the
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people who watch our Rebel videos are watching on their phones. Isn't that amazing? So why would
00:16:04.960
people watch our stuff? More than a half a billion views on YouTube alone. But why are they abandoning
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the government-regulated media, according to this report? Well, the question sort of answers itself,
00:16:17.220
doesn't it? But back to the thesis. So some companies are going to shut down. Let me ask the what?
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30%, 50%, 70% of Canadian restaurants that will not survive this pandemic lockdown. Let me ask them
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if they care about some dilettantes and radio and TV overpaid, pompous prats. Let me ask them if they
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care. Let me ask the mom and pop shops being shut down. While Jeff Bezos just hit $200 billion,
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congratulations. He's the first human ever to hit $200 billion because the pandemic has made people stop
00:16:48.340
shopping in their communities because the government won't let them. So people just order stuff from
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China via this guy. Now he's worth $200 billion. So yeah, I do care about your jobs, you overpaid
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soft hands TV stars. Sure, I care. But can you please get in line? Because there's about a million
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other people who lost their jobs because of the government's lockdown that I care about more than
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you. People who didn't live off the government's regulatory largesse in the first place.
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Working class people who do real things, not just blather for a living. Sure, I care that the
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screeching woman from the social is in jeopardy. And they all tended to be white boys who weren't,
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um, let's say, very nice. Yes, I deeply care about her and her $100,000, $200,000, $300,000, $400,000 a job.
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She's about millionth in line, though, for the who do I care about department. And the hilarious thing
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about this new study bought and paid for by the same TV and radio stations, by the way.
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So you know, it's independent and unbiased. I can't even believe this. They put this in print
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to actually blame the pandemic. I'm not kidding. You know, Netflix, Disney Plus, they've all had
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record breaking months since March, because everyone's locked at home watching more TV than ever. Some,
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you know, same reason Amazon and Apple are at record heights. You know, Apple's the first
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$2 trillion company by market capitalization. Amazon's doubled its wealth since the pandemic,
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because people are shut down. They're just clicking away on their phones. So, um, Disney,
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Netflix record, uh, revenues, but Canada's TV and radio companies are claiming that the pandemic is
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killing them. You little liars. It's what could have saved you if you actually gave viewers what
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they want and people are so hungry for stuff. Here's the cover of this report that was bought
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by the TV and radio companies. There are some accidentally honest parts to it, I admit.
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Look at this. In the 21st century, the media market has changed and consumers choose from content in a
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relevant market that includes far more than just local or national broadcasters. Yeah, that's code for
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people can't be forced to watch us now. They're free now, not trapped like I was growing up with
00:19:00.420
the three channels. Um, and these broadcasters wish they could stop that. I'll read some more.
00:19:07.300
One result of that increased competition is that traditional advertising based media
00:19:11.320
no longer grow in tandem with general economic indicators. A danger signal for the future of
00:19:16.600
those media. A danger signal? You know, YouTube has demonetized us for political reasons. They barely
00:19:22.780
allow any ads on us because we're conservative. So we survive because our audience chooses to give us
00:19:29.880
money. You, if you're watching this, are giving us $8 a month for a subscription. Thank you. We crowdfund
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all the time. The media party knows that would never work for them because they antagonize their
00:19:39.720
viewers and they suck up to power. Do you think the CBC could live off the voluntary support of
00:19:45.020
Canadians? If you don't, don't you think that's a problem? And if you do, I mean, I laugh at you if
00:19:51.100
you think that, but hey, I'm glad you're so confident. Why don't we give it a try? I mean, these are people
00:19:57.760
who are so scared of their own viewers, they ban comments on their own YouTube channels. But sure,
00:20:02.640
yeah, those people you banned would voluntarily chip in to be abused by Rosemary Barton or that
00:20:07.540
racist Wendy Mansley or that awful hockey defamer on CTV. Look, I'm not going to go through this
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whole whining document. I'll just get straight to the part that's about you. Not about what you care
00:20:17.420
about, not what you'd actually like to listen to or watch. These broadcasters don't actually talk
00:20:22.500
about that for one second in this huge begging letter. They only talk about the reason they
00:20:28.340
care about you, your money. They know they can't convince you to give it to them in subscriptions
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or crowdfunding. So they're going straight to Justin Trudeau to beg him to wring it out of you.
00:20:39.680
To start the discussion, here are three possible suggested actions. Given the urgency of the
00:20:45.860
situation, two of the three need to be done almost immediately. And the third needs to start almost
00:20:51.060
immediately, but will likely have a 12-month time frame. Number one. First, we have seen that
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current federal government pandemic economic assistance programs might cover only part of
00:21:00.100
the monthly revenue losses hitting private radio and private conventional television. Additional forms
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of assistance should be devised and implemented as quickly as possible because those local stations
00:21:09.520
are important and in some cases the only source of local news. So they want immediate money before
00:21:15.300
parliament can resume because they deserve it. Certainly more than any blue-collar worker, more than any
00:21:21.720
waitress or clerk does, because they're better than you, don't you know? Second, starting immediately
00:21:28.660
right now and to cover at least the next two broadcast fiscal years. Oh, okay. There must be regulatory
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relief for private radio and television stations to recognize the impact of the economic disruption
00:21:39.200
on their ability to fulfill certain conditions of license and to recognize the need for modifications
00:21:43.860
in operating arrangements that might help to realize cost savings. So these folks want fewer regulations
00:21:49.360
on them. And hey, I agree. But you know, it was journalists from these same TV and radio stations that, for example,
00:21:56.800
voted to ban Rebel News and other journalists from press galleries. So they like regulations for the people they hate.
00:22:03.020
The CRTC, it was them who banned Sun News. So you see, these radio stations and TV stations, they want regulations
00:22:09.980
that they have to live under, lessened, weakened. But they want more protections from their competitors
00:22:15.520
and they personally ban competitors like us. It goes on, I'm not going to bore you, I just want you to know
00:22:21.220
that Canada's official journalists don't even care about what you think anymore. They know they've lost you.
00:22:27.180
Not just on the news side, but on the entertainment side. You can count Canadian TV successes on one
00:22:33.420
hand's fingers. And each of those was the result of massive government subsidies. People just don't
00:22:38.880
care about CanCon anymore. Remember that phrase, Canadian content? People watch what they want to
00:22:44.120
watch. They listen to what they want to listen to. They don't care where people are from. You can't force
00:22:48.120
people to listen to official things anymore. Kids these days don't even know what you're talking about
00:22:52.720
if you talk about that. The irony is that Canadians have actually always been very successful in the
00:22:58.540
media. I'd say disproportionately successful, but usually only after leaving the country. Perhaps
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the most successful comedy show in America is Saturday Night Live, run for decades by a Canadian
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named Lorne Michaels. How many Hollywood stars are from Canada who come up once in a while to Toronto
00:23:17.260
or Vancouver to shoot a film in return for tax credits that we throw at them, and then they head right
00:23:21.960
back onto L.A. This report is a last wheezy gasp by the media party. Not to improve their product. They
00:23:30.240
don't even talk about that. Not to appeal to their viewers. That ship has sailed. Not to reach out to
00:23:36.060
customers. No, no, no. They are long past that. They're not that crazy. This is the last gasp by the media
00:23:43.620
party to get Trudeau to bail them out. Again. Again. I mean, he just threw tens of millions of dollars
00:23:53.000
at them last month in July. But you know what? It's August already. And there's another election
00:24:00.740
coming up. You can better believe Trudeau's going to pony up. I mean, wouldn't you if you were Trudeau?
00:24:07.360
I mean, what's another billion dollars more to throw on the bonfire? In the past, the media had
00:24:13.320
too much self-respect to act like such brazen hussies. They don't anymore, do they? Stay with us for
00:24:20.900
more. Christine, Laura, what you're seeing behind me is one of multiple locations that have been
00:24:37.320
burning in Kenosha, Wisconsin over the course of the night. A second night since Jacob Blake was seen
00:24:44.200
shot in the back seven times by a police officer. And what you are seeing now, these images,
00:24:50.900
came and come in stark contrast to what we saw over the course of the daytime hours in Kenosha
00:24:57.040
and into the early evening, which were largely peaceful demonstrations in the face of law
00:25:01.240
enforcement. It wasn't until night fell that things began to get a little bit more contentious.
00:25:05.380
Things were thrown back and forth. Police started using some of those crowd dispersal tactics like
00:25:10.680
tear gas, even playing very loud sounds to push them out. And then what you are seeing,
00:25:16.480
the common theme that ties all of this together is an expression of anger and frustration over what
00:25:21.760
people feel like has become an all too familiar story. Did you see what was on the screen in that
00:25:27.640
CNN clip? They called it fiery, but mostly peaceful protests. They didn't use the word riot. And they
00:25:36.300
didn't say arson or torture. They said it's fiery, but mostly peaceful. And in the other screen,
00:25:42.540
missile outs, including fireworks, I should tell you, being shot at police. And CNN says, oh, no, this is
00:25:50.160
very mostly peaceful, just incredible, unbelievable. And all this happening in the background as Donald
00:25:56.840
Trump has his Republican Party's convention, which has been very successful in terms of
00:26:02.240
elocuting a positive message. At least that's how it looks to me. And according to audience
00:26:08.460
statistics, six times more people watching the Republican convention than its Democrat counterpart.
00:26:13.700
Joining us now to talk about this is one of our best Sherpas on American politics. And he's the
00:26:20.040
author of the new book, which I recommend. It's called Red November. Will the country vote red for
00:26:25.540
Trump or red for socialism? I'm talking about Joel Pollack, senior editor at large at Breitbart.com.
00:26:32.080
You too. I like that. I'm the Sherpa of conservative analysis. That's great. That means I get to carry all the
00:26:37.800
baggage. You know, a Sherpa when I was a law student who was driving a taxi in Boston. He told me he was
00:26:44.940
from Nepal and I saw his ID on the visor and his last name was Sherpa. And it turned out he came from
00:26:51.380
a family of Sherpas in the Himalayas, the real deal. So. Well, that's incredible. Well, you are our Sherpa
00:26:58.040
because you're helping guide us through these mountain passes. Well, you will reach the summit. I have no
00:27:03.220
doubt. Well, thank you very much. So much going on. The riots in Kenosha, which is not a big city. It's
00:27:10.460
not a very, it's not a traditionally urban or black city. I think it's, it's a pretty small town,
00:27:17.720
regular kind of place, but it has Black Lives Matter style riots that have torched the place.
00:27:22.300
What are your quick thoughts on that? Well, that part of Wisconsin is very interesting. So it's right
00:27:29.240
by the Illinois border. I know it pretty well because I grew up in the northern suburbs of
00:27:33.560
Chicago. So if you ever drove to Milwaukee or took the train, you went through Kenosha and it has outlet
00:27:40.660
malls. It is a gateway to southern, southwestern Wisconsin. It's about half an hour or so south of
00:27:49.100
Milwaukee. And there are actually some black communities up there. There's a large black community
00:27:54.640
on the Illinois side of the border in the city of Waukegan. And Kenosha has a black community.
00:28:00.040
And also Sturtevant is a town nearby where there's a large black middle class community
00:28:05.700
in a somewhat rural slash suburban area. So the Midwest is not what the coastal stereotype would
00:28:12.820
have you believe. It's actually quite diverse. That district was Paul Ryan's district when he was
00:28:17.040
speaker of the house, when he was still in Congress. And he made a point of reaching out to the black
00:28:21.180
communities of that region, as well as the Latino communities in the area. So a really interesting
00:28:26.440
part of the country and absolutely spectacularly beautiful in the summertime. It's just a shame that
00:28:31.780
everything is happening as it is. But if it can happen in Kenosha, it can happen anywhere. And the
00:28:38.860
shooting that started it all began on Sunday. Jacob Blake, age 29, was shot by police in a confrontation.
00:28:46.340
Much was made out of the fact that he was shot in the back, which is true. And he was reported widely
00:28:53.400
as having been unarmed. That turns out not to be true, or very likely not to be true. The eyewitness
00:28:59.460
who recorded the infamous cell phone video said that police were shouting at him to drop the knife,
00:29:04.600
drop the knife. And the state prosecutors have determined after an investigation that he
00:29:11.200
did in fact have a knife with him. It was recovered from the floorboard of the car.
00:29:16.800
And remember, he was shot as he was reaching into the car. He opened the driver's side door and was
00:29:20.500
reaching for something as if on the seat or on the floor. So police were confronted by a man who was
00:29:27.180
very likely armed. He also had scuffled with them before. There's a video from a different angle that
00:29:31.420
shows him fighting with police. And apparently they had attempted to tase him, that is to use non-lethal
00:29:36.820
stun weapons. And they don't work on everybody. Some people escape. Some people just get lucky.
00:29:44.600
The taser misses. It only has a couple of cartridges or a couple of darts in it. So he kept resisting
00:29:51.740
arrest and evading. And that's what led to the situation. Almost all of these bad situations
00:29:55.760
involve people resisting arrest. And whether they're white or black, we had a case here in California
00:30:02.000
a few years ago in Fresno, a white teenager who was shot by police in similar circumstances.
00:30:07.180
Resisting arrest is the common denominator. But the other common denominator in these cases is fake
00:30:11.900
news. And so you have fake news telling everyone that this guy is unarmed and so forth, that he was
00:30:18.220
simply shot by police while he was in his car. You know, all of these false characterizations of the
00:30:24.080
circumstances. We were also told that he was simply intervening in a domestic dispute somewhere else.
00:30:28.620
Turns out that the woman who was living at the address to which the police came had actually
00:30:34.300
called the police because he was not supposed to be there. Evidently, there's some history between
00:30:38.340
them. And he had a warrant out for his arrest. He was charged with sexual assault, among other
00:30:45.900
crimes. And the police had been looking for him for almost two months. That on top of reports in local
00:30:52.480
media that he had a prior arrest for violent behavior involving a gun. So police knew all this.
00:30:58.620
And in that previous occasion, apparently, he had to be subdued with a police dog because he also
00:31:03.880
resisted arrest. So this gentleman, as many other positive qualities as he may have had, had a history
00:31:10.720
of violence and run-ins with the law. And police knew all that or likely knew all that when they
00:31:16.600
tried to apprehend him. And all of that, if it were known, if people had waited for the facts,
00:31:22.840
would have taken some of the sensationalism out of the protests. But the first night you had protests,
00:31:28.300
you had riots, people looting, people burning. The next morning, Joe Biden put out a statement
00:31:33.700
condemning the police and saying nothing about the violence, nothing about the riots. So that evening,
00:31:40.080
Monday night, I don't want to necessarily say there's a causal relationship, although certainly
00:31:44.500
Biden could have at least made the protests seem illegitimate when they became violent. He could have
00:31:51.080
at least urged peaceful protests. He didn't do that. So Monday night, the city basically went up in flames.
00:31:55.880
At least 10 buildings in the downtown area, which is called Uptown, burned to the ground,
00:32:00.660
including a charitable organization, a furniture store, just mom-and-pop shops, totally torched,
00:32:07.600
looted. And there were reports of gunshots, people starting to bring weapons to some of these protests.
00:32:14.020
On Tuesday, there was an actual shooting or series of shootings. A young fellow has been
00:32:20.040
arrested, a young man from Illinois, 17-year-old fellow. And he was in Kenosha. We're not sure why,
00:32:28.300
but he came and was clearly very into the idea of standing up for the business owners, standing up
00:32:35.180
for the town against the rioters. I caught the fact that he was shown in a Getty Images photograph,
00:32:42.500
not by name. They didn't know who he was. But earlier in the day, he had been photographed on the
00:32:45.860
news wires, removing graffiti from a public building. So he was clearly there to help out in whatever way
00:32:52.880
he thought he was helping. But he brought his AR-15. I'm not sure if he owned it legally. And, you know,
00:32:59.280
good advice generally, as whatever his intentions might have been, avoid riots. Nobody's helping by
00:33:04.460
showing up during a riot. The police are there for a reason. And even if the police aren't there,
00:33:08.480
it really isn't your business. Because if you bring weapons to help people who haven't asked you for
00:33:13.020
their help, apparently, all you're doing is inflating the possibility of danger. And he seems
00:33:18.620
to be a young guy who was very into police. That's the only known ideology we really have. He went to
00:33:24.240
a Trump rally, apparently, according to BuzzFeed. There have been all kinds of false reports circulating
00:33:28.240
about him being a white supremacist. There's no evidence of that whatsoever. It could turn out that
00:33:32.340
he is, but there was no evidence of that, at least up until now. And he turns out to be a teenager
00:33:40.300
from Illinois. They arrested him in Illinois, from Antioch, Illinois. And he got himself into a
00:33:45.940
confrontation. It's not sure who started it. It's not clear who started it. But if you watch the videos,
00:33:50.360
it's clear he's being attacked in both cases where he fired his weapon at someone. The first person who
00:33:56.680
attacked him, he shot him in the head. Then he started running. Not immediately. It appears he called
00:34:01.660
someone, perhaps the police, and reported that he had shot someone. And then he was chased by a mob.
00:34:06.260
He was viciously attacked. And then he shot one of the attackers dead and shot the other in the arm.
00:34:12.080
The one who was shot in the arm, who lost a significant portion of his biceps and his forearm,
00:34:17.260
was holding a pistol, a pistol drawn. So this was not some kind of random mass shooting. The
00:34:24.000
Washington Post described it as shooting into a crowd of people. That's not what happened.
00:34:28.060
This was a confrontation between rioters and an armed person who probably shouldn't have been there
00:34:32.700
and shouldn't have been armed because he had no business standing in front of somebody else's
00:34:36.680
business. Essentially, it was a form of vigilantism. He wasn't looking necessarily. We don't know this.
00:34:41.040
We don't know his motives. He wasn't necessarily looking for someone to shoot. But he was certainly
00:34:45.400
in way over his head. That's what we seem to know so far about the situation. Regardless,
00:34:52.480
the overall truth of this is that Democrats in Wisconsin have allowed the situation to become
00:34:58.420
out of control. President Trump, the day before the shooting on Tuesday, offered a full contingent
00:35:04.680
of the National Guard, federal law enforcement. The Democratic governor, Tony Evers, declined.
00:35:09.760
They did accept a couple of hundred, I think, 250 National Guard troops, but they only deployed
00:35:14.220
late. And they did not accept, I think, the 1,500 that Trump had offered. The next day,
00:35:19.160
the governor accepted the full contingent of National Guard and federal law enforcement.
00:35:23.020
But that reluctance may have also contributed to the disorder or at least allowed the disorder to go
00:35:29.700
on Tuesday night. Wednesday night, there were more protests. The media described these protests as
00:35:34.900
peaceful, just like they described the second night of protest as peaceful. That is to say,
00:35:39.280
the night where things were burnt down. So in other words, first night, there's sort of protests and
00:35:44.280
riots. Second night, burning a lot of things. Third night, the shootings. And fourth night, last night,
00:35:50.020
Wednesday night, you have protests that are described as peaceful. But although there's no
00:35:54.960
physical confrontations, a synagogue was vandalized, a church was vandalized.
00:36:00.000
Now we're coming to my point. Our media do not understand what peaceful protest is. Peaceful
00:36:06.240
protests aren't just the absence of physical violence. Violence to property, first of all, is violence.
00:36:12.840
It's not peaceful. Secondly, there's a difference between peaceful protest and lawful protest.
00:36:17.320
Now, repressive societies write the laws or apply the laws such that almost no form of protest is
00:36:24.080
allowed. But that's not the kind of society we live in. We live in a society where the government's
00:36:29.040
ability to restrict protest is very, very limited. And so most protests, once they are permitted,
00:36:35.940
will be lawful. The reason you apply for a permit is that you're not the only person with rights.
00:36:39.700
There are other people with rights, rights of freedom of speech, rights of freedom of assembly.
00:36:42.700
We don't want demonstrators and counter demonstrators to encounter each other suddenly.
00:36:46.860
You have to coordinate a large protest with local authorities to make sure that everybody is safe
00:36:53.000
and that everybody's rights are respected. Well, none of these protests are lawful. And in fact,
00:36:58.040
in Wisconsin, there's been a curfew after 8 p.m. each of these nights. So the media call them
00:37:02.920
peaceful protests, but they're often held in deliberate violation of the curfew. So this never
00:37:08.680
ends well because the media are morally, indefensibly excusing these anarchist protests,
00:37:16.380
whether they're ideologically anarchist, behaviorally anarchist, they just defy all authority
00:37:21.160
and they show utter contempt for the rights of those in the community around them. These protests are
00:37:25.520
just going on everywhere. And we're supposed to be satisfied merely if nobody gets shot or hurt or
00:37:30.660
there's no looting. That's the low standard the media are applying. The civil rights movement didn't
00:37:35.760
work that way. When Martin Luther King led people in the streets or led people at lunch counter
00:37:40.480
demonstrations and sit-ins and that sort of thing, the theme was nonviolence. And that meant
00:37:46.140
that you could not do anything destructive. And that was the power of the protest, that when people
00:37:51.680
were arrested or when they were beaten by police or attacked by police dogs or sprayed with water
00:37:55.880
hoses, it was clear the violence was being done to them for the simple fact that they were expressing
00:38:02.800
themselves. They were exercising their rights. The reason that was so effective was people saw that
00:38:07.540
on television and recoiled in horror and immediately felt sympathy and empathy for the civil rights
00:38:12.700
protesters. And that changed the minds of an entire generation. And that's what peaceful protest is.
00:38:18.320
None of these protests has been peaceful. None of them, because they've not followed the law. And
00:38:22.760
the Democrats know this. They know the difference. They spoke very eloquently at John Lewis's funeral last
00:38:27.380
month about Satyagraha, the philosophy of nonviolent protest and all of that. And yet, this is where we
00:38:34.680
are today. Yeah. So it's like Gandhi and his protests. It only works when the people you're protesting
00:38:41.440
against have high ethics and high morals. And you're sort of showing their own conduct is against their own
00:38:47.820
ethics. I mean, Gandhi only works against the British Empire. Gandhi doesn't work against the Soviet Union,
00:38:53.820
the Nazis, or Mao. And I think the same thing with the American civil rights movement in the past.
00:38:59.120
It worked precisely because they were appealing to the better angels of American sentiment, ethics,
00:39:05.740
and ideals. Here, there's no such thing with the gratuitous, lustful violence of the left.
00:39:12.620
And I know you've got to run really quickly, but let me show you a clip from the same CNN, Don Lemon,
00:39:18.340
when he started to realize that maybe these riots aren't quite having the political effect
00:39:25.340
he wishes they had. And now he's a little worried that they're hurting the Joe Bidens of the world.
00:39:31.300
Here, take a quick look at this. I do think that this, what you said, what's happening in Kenosha
00:39:37.480
is a Rorschach test for the entire country. And I think this is a blind spot for Democrats. I think
00:39:44.440
Democrats are ignoring this problem. We're hoping that it will go away. And it's not going to go
00:39:48.980
away. And so, unless someone comes up with a solution over the next 73 days, or 70 so, however many
00:39:57.460
days. 68 days. 68 days. So it's not going to, the problem is not going to be fixed by then. But what
00:40:04.440
they can do, and I think maybe Joe Biden may be afraid to do it. I'm not sure. Maybe he won't. Maybe
00:40:11.720
he is. He's got to address it. He's got to come out and talk about it. I think that's another way
00:40:17.640
of saying that the focus groups are showing severely normal Americans, moderate Americans, even
00:40:23.060
Democrat leaners, they're appalled by this violence and the fact that Joe Biden will take a knee and
00:40:29.220
wait three days before saying anything about burning Kenosha. Yeah, the polls are terrible. And keep in
00:40:36.620
mind, Don Lemon said that less than 24 hours after that clip you showed in the beginning of CNN trying
00:40:43.900
to say that all these protests with flames behind him, they're all peaceful. The polls must be
00:40:53.040
terrible and Democrats are quickly losing control of the narrative. The fact is they had four days
00:40:57.540
during their convention to condemn the violence, to condemn the riots, and they didn't do so. Biden
00:41:02.560
waited three days to condemn the riots in Kenosha. They have lost the public on this, and they're
00:41:08.000
starting to panic. And you're seeing the New York Times and CNN starting to raise the alarm. The New
00:41:12.020
York Times saying that we've already seen a shift in voting behavior, or at least a shift in opinion
00:41:20.500
among voters in Wisconsin in response to all this, because they feel the Democrats can't control it.
00:41:25.240
So Biden and the Democrats were hoping people would vote for them to calm everything down. Now Biden
00:41:32.400
and the Democrats look like they're the ones who are keeping everything going, and keeping the
00:41:39.100
riots going, keeping the violence going. And so Trump is the only person who can calm things down. And I'll
00:41:43.900
have to leave you there, but we'll watch the fourth night of the convention with interest.
00:41:47.300
Joel Pollack, senior editor-at-large at Breitbart.com. Thank you for your time, my friend. Appreciate you
00:41:51.660
joining us. Thank you. There you have it. May I encourage you to get Joel's book. It's called
00:41:55.920
Red November. Will the country vote red for Trump? Or red for socialism? And it couldn't be more topical
00:42:16.880
Hey, welcome back. On my monologue on the Republican National Convention, Andrea writes,
00:42:21.620
A huge difference, in my opinion, from the Democrat convention was that the Republicans are not in
00:42:26.380
victimhood mode. They are proud to be American, and we're open about it. Thanks for showing these
00:42:30.820
clips, Ezra. Yeah, not in victimhood mode. And I saw, I think it was Frank Luntz, the pollster,
00:42:36.940
who noted that the message is so much more positive. It wasn't even attacking the Democrats. Like,
00:42:43.580
you can be positive about the country, but negative about your opponents. This was just positive
00:42:48.360
messaging, happy, building, prosperous, safety, multicultural. Like, it was positive messages.
00:42:54.860
It wasn't even attack, attack, attack. So not only were they proud Americans, but they weren't even
00:42:58.800
dignifying the Democrats with attacks. I think people can see the riots and get the Democrat point
00:43:04.200
of view themselves. On Sheila and Keen getting accredited to work in the Alberta legislature,
00:43:08.840
Rudy writes, Many congrats to you guys. Good for you. This is only the beginning of greater things to
00:43:14.800
come. Keep up the good work. I was very excited about it, and hopefully we will have more freedom
00:43:20.680
in the press victories. It's just sort of sad that we have to fight in the court of law to be able to
00:43:26.020
do our journalism in the court of public opinion. Like, I just thought we were starting a journalism
00:43:30.160
company when we started Rebel News. I didn't think we'd have to spend tens of thousands of dollars a
00:43:34.200
month fighting for the right to do journalism through lawyers and bodyguards. Doc writes,
00:43:40.260
Well, congrats. But they'll still try to stop your truth somehow, I imagine. I'm afraid you could be
00:43:46.020
correct. It'll be very interesting to me to see how the other journalists treat Sheila and Keen,
00:43:53.340
if they're petty, abusive, negative. I mean, this is just like high school folks. The little
00:43:59.420
Mean Girls Club voted to ban Sheila and Keen, but the principal came and said, No, you don't. So let's
00:44:05.480
see if the Mean Girls are still as petty as ever. I unfortunately think they will be. We'll see.
00:44:10.180
It's funny, though, because Post Media has ordered their journalists in Edmonton just to shut up
00:44:16.180
about all this stuff. It was a great embarrassment to the company, especially Tyler Dotson, who was
00:44:21.040
forced to resign from the press gallery by his employer, National Post. It'll be interesting to
00:44:25.340
see if he vents his rage at our people. I hope he doesn't, but who knows. That's our show for today.
00:44:30.800
Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home,