Rebel News Podcast - September 10, 2020


#WokeJet： WestJet flight cancelled because baby wouldn’t wear mask


Episode Stats

Length

28 minutes

Words per Minute

157.65144

Word Count

4,536

Sentence Count

355

Misogynist Sentences

4

Hate Speech Sentences

8


Summary

A 19-month-old girl refused to wear a face mask on a WestJet flight, and the airline called the police. When the cops didn't do what they were supposed to do, the airline canceled the whole flight.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hello, my rebels. Today, I talk about a bizarre incident on a WestJet flight.
00:00:04.980 Bizarre, but not unpredictable. WestJet announced it was going zero tolerance
00:00:09.160 with people who don't wear masks. But the thing is, the law provides exemptions,
00:00:13.820 including for tiny little babies. There was a 19-month-year-old kid
00:00:17.500 who didn't want to wear a mask. WestJet went ape.
00:00:21.800 They called the police. When the police didn't arrest the little girl,
00:00:26.100 WestJet actually canceled the whole flight. I'll tell you the whole story. It is nuts.
00:00:33.060 I don't know what's going on here, but I'll tell you what I know. Before I do, let me invite you
00:00:39.020 to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus to get the video version on it. I will show you a video
00:00:44.800 taken of the fracas on the airline. So please consider becoming a Rebel News Plus subscriber.
00:00:51.840 It's $8 a month or $80 for the whole year. Just go to rebelnews.com and click subscribe.
00:01:03.840 Tonight, WestJet keeps their weird illegal promise and goes zero tolerance on mask exemptions
00:01:19.860 to cancel the flight because a baby wouldn't wear one. It's September 9th and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
00:01:28.220 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
00:01:31.940 There's 8,500 customers here and you won't give them an answer.
00:01:36.000 The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
00:01:41.860 I saw this the other day on Twitter and I didn't understand it.
00:01:49.920 WestJet was going on some PR blitz, a marketing blitz.
00:01:53.760 About how they now have a zero tolerance policy towards people who don't wear masks.
00:02:00.060 I mean, they say it about three different ways, but it's really summed up by their graphic and their slogan.
00:02:05.200 Zero tolerance. Pretty clear what that means, right? Zero.
00:02:09.840 And if you break it, you'll be banned for a year, they say.
00:02:13.320 Now, I read that and I was confused.
00:02:15.100 Most customer service oriented companies don't emphasize things that are uncomfortable or a hassle or bureaucratic or irritating.
00:02:24.580 You don't really emphasize that if you're in the tourism and hospitality industry.
00:02:28.420 I know it's old fashioned, but there once was a time when people actually said things like,
00:02:32.840 the customer's always right. Imagine saying the customer's always wrong.
00:02:37.580 It's like the joke. We're not happy until you're not happy.
00:02:41.480 That's a joke, but the joke is becoming real.
00:02:43.940 Why would you boast about how strict you are with your customers?
00:02:48.660 How you're going to punish people, ban them from your company for a year.
00:02:52.760 What's the thinking there?
00:02:54.000 I've just never heard of that before from anyone other than say, I don't know, a government bureaucracy.
00:02:58.360 In the worst bureaucracies, monopolies, like the worst government hospitals with the longest lineups.
00:03:05.240 Have you ever been in a four hour or an eight hour emergency room visit?
00:03:09.120 I have.
00:03:09.920 You sometimes see signs like that on the wall, basically accusing you of being rude and threatening you in advance,
00:03:17.100 saying rude treatment of employees will result in you being kicked out, stuff like that.
00:03:21.080 I've seen a lot of signs like that in government hospital waiting rooms and other government bureaucracies.
00:03:26.820 Like, for example, the motor vehicles department, which we don't have in Alberta anymore, but the rest of the country still does.
00:03:33.100 Like this one.
00:03:34.000 This is from a British government hospital.
00:03:35.880 You see these in a lot of government places.
00:03:38.820 Now, I'm not for being rude or violent towards staff,
00:03:41.540 but you normally don't see signs like that in a successful private business.
00:03:47.320 It's weird that they assume naturally you're going to be unhappy with them,
00:03:52.440 and they don't really care if they come across as threatening to you.
00:03:54.980 Where else are you going to go?
00:03:56.240 To the private friendly hospital?
00:03:58.260 Not in Canada, you're not.
00:03:59.820 So sit back down and shut up.
00:04:02.620 I can't be the only Canadian who literally gushes when I have to go to a customer friendly service of any U.S. hospital.
00:04:09.520 It's just such a shocking change from our own government system.
00:04:14.500 My point is, you've got an airline acting like a mean government bureaucracy now.
00:04:19.120 Like a police force, almost.
00:04:21.560 Threatening their own passengers.
00:04:23.520 If you dare not to wear a mask, even for a moment, they're in zero tolerance.
00:04:28.520 You'll be banned for a year.
00:04:30.020 And you say your marketing department came up with this one?
00:04:33.600 I think they're secretly working for your rivals there, Canada.
00:04:35.920 Anyways, I read that, and I tweeted my reply, that I happen to know that's illegal.
00:04:42.140 That's just plain wrong in law.
00:04:44.220 And that if any disabled person who's exempt from the mask bylaw is bullied or banned by WestJet with their new zero tolerance BS,
00:04:52.660 I would sue WestJet for them.
00:04:55.040 Get them a lawyer.
00:04:55.620 Because I've actually read every mask bylaw in Canada, and I encourage you to do so too at our website, maskexemption.ca.
00:05:04.000 Every single mask bylaw in Canada, every one of them has some exemptions.
00:05:08.120 Now, some bylaws have more exemptions than others.
00:05:10.660 Every one of them, for example, has an exemption for little kids.
00:05:14.120 All of them cover kids under two years old.
00:05:17.500 There's no place in Canada where a kid under two has to wear a mask.
00:05:20.400 Some places, kids under five are exempt.
00:05:24.140 All bylaws have exemptions for people who can't touch their face.
00:05:27.660 So if you're quadriplegic, you don't have to wear a mask, for example.
00:05:31.060 Or people with breathing problems or other medical problems, for example.
00:05:34.800 Some bylaws have, seriously, ten exemptions.
00:05:39.080 I've read them.
00:05:39.700 You can read them at maskexemption.ca.
00:05:41.980 You can read the airplane bylaw right there.
00:05:44.440 So I knew this was just plain old false because I read the airplane bylaw, which makes it weirder.
00:05:50.640 Why are you threatening to go so brutally on your customers, to ban them for a year, when in fact many of them are exempt from the mask?
00:05:57.680 Like, why are you doing this?
00:05:59.560 And I know this from reading the law.
00:06:01.340 You must take your mask down when boarding the flight to prove that you are who your ID says you are.
00:06:07.820 And then you can take your mask off when you're on the plane, when you're having a snack or a drink, which are served on the flight.
00:06:14.740 Now, I know that red-eye flight overnight from Calgary to Edmonton on WestJet.
00:06:19.540 I've taken it myself.
00:06:20.760 People are awake for the first little bit of the flight.
00:06:23.500 Then they dim the lights in the cabin, and people generally try to sleep.
00:06:27.020 It's a red-eye.
00:06:27.660 It's that night flight.
00:06:28.660 I can assure you that many people's masks would slip off their noses a little bit, either accidentally,
00:06:34.420 or maybe they would just pull it off a bit unconsciously, even in their sleep.
00:06:37.820 And it's dark on the plane.
00:06:39.260 You'd have to be very weird to be a flight attendant walking through the plane with a flashlight,
00:06:45.500 waking anyone up who didn't have a mask perfectly on mid-sleep.
00:06:50.000 Unless they were having pretzels and a drink, in which case, hey, no problem.
00:06:53.180 Take your whole mask off.
00:06:54.420 It's just such a weird rule.
00:06:55.580 Anyways, I said this a week ago when I saw those tweets from WestJet.
00:06:59.580 I just didn't get it.
00:07:02.320 Well, now, would you look at this?
00:07:03.720 A family with some small kids was ordered on that flight, that night flight, that WestJet
00:07:08.680 flight, ordered to put their masks on.
00:07:10.780 But the youngest kid was 19 months old.
00:07:13.400 And as I mentioned, all kids under two are exempt.
00:07:16.580 But you saw that butch new WestJet.
00:07:18.780 They're on the warpath against their own people.
00:07:20.980 So they went harder and harder on this family, who, according to witnesses, stayed calm throughout.
00:07:26.880 Apparently, the little girl, 19 months old, when she was forced to have her mask on, illegally,
00:07:33.460 I might add, you're breaking the law by forcing an exempt person to wear a mask, she threw up.
00:07:39.120 That's no good.
00:07:41.380 Police were called.
00:07:42.620 Why?
00:07:43.500 Imagine making that 911 call.
00:07:46.480 We've got a 19-month-old baby.
00:07:48.280 Come arrest her.
00:07:50.100 The cops didn't arrest her, but they still came.
00:07:52.500 Maybe they knew the law better than the WestJet weirdos by not arresting anyone.
00:07:57.380 But by this point in time, you can imagine, I don't know, was it 1, 2, 3 a.m. or whatever?
00:08:02.980 A lot of people on the plane were just getting frustrated and furious with the whole situation,
00:08:06.920 with the airline.
00:08:08.240 And frankly, with the cops, for making such a production out of this.
00:08:11.800 Take a look at this video.
00:08:12.860 It's a little bit hard to hear.
00:08:14.320 This was taken by a passenger on the flight.
00:08:16.000 But you can tell this is going over very poorly with everyone.
00:08:21.620 It is bullshit.
00:08:22.860 Bullshit!
00:08:23.640 You can't have it.
00:08:24.820 You can't have it.
00:08:25.740 Bullshit!
00:08:26.980 We've all seen it.
00:08:29.360 Listen to me.
00:08:29.900 We have all seen it.
00:08:31.300 This isn't going to get finished.
00:08:33.020 You suck to this chair.
00:08:35.040 You don't blow up the plane.
00:08:36.380 You goofy suckers up.
00:08:38.320 Beat it!
00:08:38.920 Excuse me?
00:08:40.140 What is your name?
00:08:41.600 This is not my name.
00:08:44.340 Everyone has seen it.
00:08:45.660 No, no, you're talking there.
00:08:48.440 Everyone has seen it.
00:08:53.480 Where were you riding a bicycle at this fucking time?
00:08:56.180 You don't be ignorant.
00:08:58.860 Move!
00:08:59.940 You don't be ignorant.
00:09:00.780 You have seen it.
00:09:01.780 You told the last geo-child when you were asked several times.
00:09:06.700 How do you know that you are here?
00:09:08.240 I took witnesses.
00:09:10.300 We all have seen it.
00:09:12.000 Let's go to all the witnesses.
00:09:13.160 Look at your horse.
00:09:15.600 So that zero-tolerance thing wasn't working out too well for anyone on the plane.
00:09:20.780 Not for the little girl who threw up.
00:09:23.520 Not for the cops who killed just a little bit more of the public support for them.
00:09:28.700 Not for the airline, which looks as stupid as it looks punitive.
00:09:31.960 Not for the other passengers who were furious at this whole fiasco, the whole delay.
00:09:37.240 But no charges were laid.
00:09:39.120 In a way, that's a loss of face for WestJet, right?
00:09:42.340 I mean, you call the cops onto a plane.
00:09:44.740 I see that.
00:09:45.540 I expect it's going to end with handcuffs and then arrest.
00:09:47.800 But I guess not.
00:09:49.500 So WestJet flight attendants just lost face.
00:09:52.720 They made this whole fuss and the cops didn't arrest anyone.
00:09:55.220 But they had to show those unruly passengers who's the boss.
00:10:00.080 I mean, it's all about being boastful and prideful and zero tolerance and kicking people off for a year, right?
00:10:08.440 Their new policy, the beatings will continue until the morale improves.
00:10:12.180 So I can't even believe this part.
00:10:15.620 The flight crew just canceled the whole flight.
00:10:18.940 They couldn't kick out the individuals they were mad at or the individuals who were mad at them.
00:10:24.580 They couldn't kick out the people who were saying, get the plane going, sit down.
00:10:28.600 So they just canceled the whole thing.
00:10:30.820 Zero tolerance.
00:10:32.100 Their bosses must be so proud.
00:10:35.140 What on earth?
00:10:36.420 Even if you're a pro-mask person, and help me understand how that works.
00:10:41.100 You're on a plane for four hours, when people can have their mask down for an hour, snacking and drinking.
00:10:47.120 But let's say you believe in the magic power of masks, even when you can have one down for an hour on a plane.
00:10:51.880 How do you excuse the entire flight being canceled by petty flight attendants and staff?
00:10:56.460 You can't.
00:10:57.840 I'm sure you can't trust them not to do it again either.
00:11:00.860 I mean, they told you they intend to go zero tolerance here.
00:11:04.980 In multiple interviews since this incident in Calgary,
00:11:08.420 they're not only not apologizing to the family, including the girl they made to throw up.
00:11:14.160 They're not apologizing to the other canceled customers.
00:11:17.280 They're trying to argue the case for it.
00:11:18.920 They're litigating this.
00:11:20.160 They're saying, well, fine.
00:11:21.760 The 19-month-year-old kid was exempt, but there was a three-year-old.
00:11:25.440 And the family says the three-year-old had her mask on.
00:11:28.540 But even if that's not true, that's your big counter argument, WestJet?
00:11:34.440 That's your big marketing pivot?
00:11:37.580 A three-year-old kid didn't have her mask on, so we threw a tantrum, called the cops, canceled the whole flight.
00:11:46.820 I mean, I've heard of air rage before, but never coming from the airline itself.
00:11:52.460 What a disgrace.
00:11:53.380 What is wrong with WestJet?
00:11:54.920 They used to be the good guys, the underdog, with a specialty in customer service way back when.
00:12:02.600 I guess it was revealed pretty soon after that that was just a big sham.
00:12:08.000 They were only pretending to be the good guys.
00:12:09.920 In fact, they were illegally engaging in corporate espionage against Air Canada.
00:12:14.260 They were caught.
00:12:15.280 Senior executives were fired.
00:12:17.060 They paid a massive penalty to Air Canada and gave an apology for their criminal misconduct.
00:12:23.200 That's when we knew that WestJet's whole wokeness is just a lie meant for public consumption.
00:12:30.920 Recently, WestJet's weird CEO thought he'd go woke denouncing Wexit.
00:12:36.340 That's the Western Canadian political movement.
00:12:38.840 Got nothing to do with airline.
00:12:40.200 Hey, thanks, WestJet.
00:12:41.860 Your job is to fly airplanes, not to engage in partisan politics.
00:12:46.520 Please shut up, you woke weirdos.
00:12:50.500 How does that help the company?
00:12:51.800 Help shareholder value?
00:12:53.020 Help your customers?
00:12:53.740 You've got a CEO choosing political parties.
00:12:56.560 It didn't help the airline.
00:12:58.200 But here we go again.
00:12:59.740 What kind of weirdness is going on in their corporate headquarters where they think bullying their own passengers, including a three-year-old kid or a 19-month-year-old?
00:13:09.300 How is that a winner?
00:13:10.200 And then the group punishment, cancelling the entire flight in a fit of peak?
00:13:15.840 Huh.
00:13:16.640 WestJet?
00:13:18.140 Nah, try WokeJet.
00:13:20.940 Stay with us for more.
00:13:22.040 Well, for anyone who has little kids, especially little girls, the debut of the live-action version of Disney's Mulan is a big deal.
00:13:42.500 Lots of adults like Disney movies, too.
00:13:44.580 They're so well done.
00:13:45.580 But there's a problem with Mulan, which is the story of a Chinese warrior princess.
00:13:52.480 The problem is not with the story itself or how it's told, but where it was filmed, and specifically the credits at the end of the movie.
00:14:04.020 Most shocking, as you can see here, the Disney film was filmed in the Xinjiang region of China, which is the Uyghur Muslim region, and it gives special thanks to a variety of Chinese propaganda outlets, including the Public Security Bureau in the city of Turpan, or Tulufan, as it's called in China.
00:14:31.420 Well, that's where concentration camps for those same Chinese Uyghur Muslims are located.
00:14:41.080 Why would Disney film there to begin with, and why would it so submissively give praise and thanks to so many Chinese propaganda outlets and to the secret police there?
00:14:54.420 Joining us now to talk about this is our friend Gordon Chang, a senior commentator on the subject, and I must recommend that you follow Gordon every day on Twitter, which I do.
00:15:06.880 He's at Gordon G. Chang on Twitter, and he joins us now via Skype.
00:15:11.660 Gordon, the movie itself is not the story.
00:15:14.500 Disney does a good job.
00:15:15.680 It's the striking and startling bending of the knee to the secret police of China.
00:15:22.260 That's bizarre.
00:15:24.020 Yeah, this is horrific, because as you point out, these are the same people who run concentration camps.
00:15:30.900 And as a part of China's minority policies toward the Uyghurs and the Kazakhs, it's not just detaining 1.3 million or perhaps as many as 3 million.
00:15:41.260 It's also genocidal policies, institutional slavery, officialized rape.
00:15:48.600 This is horrific.
00:15:50.140 And for Disney to film in that area was wrong in itself.
00:15:53.960 And certainly to thank them publicly just shows complicity with crimes against humanity.
00:16:00.040 I read an interesting story about this in The Washington Post by Isaac Stonefish, and he reminds us that Disney got offside with China more than 20 years ago when it produced a film that was sympathetic to the Dalai Lama.
00:16:18.840 And that Disney for years tried to apologize, personally apologized to the senior leadership of the Communist Party to win its way back into the heart of the Communist Party, just like the NBA has, just like so many corporations have.
00:16:37.080 And he posits that this is Disney's way of saying sorry and thank you and will bend the knee to you and will never be disobedient again.
00:16:45.340 It suggests that this flourish of praising the secret police is a purposeful bond with the Chinese Communist Party.
00:16:54.740 I find that convincing.
00:16:56.040 What do you think?
00:16:57.480 Well, that's certainly a convincing explanation.
00:17:00.220 Now, we don't know Disney's motivation.
00:17:03.340 Only people on the inside of the organization do.
00:17:06.420 But we can see what Disney does.
00:17:08.820 And what Disney does is just wrong.
00:17:10.900 It's offensive to all of the ideals that Americans hold.
00:17:16.240 Now, when you have companies that do business in China, this is going to happen.
00:17:21.200 And it really is up to the White House to establish policies that change the incentives for American companies.
00:17:30.980 Because as long as they can do business in Xinjiang or what the Uyghurs call East Turkestan, this type of stuff is going to happen.
00:17:39.080 I've seen Secretary Pompeo, the U.S. Secretary of State, get tougher and tougher with China, including the most recent thing I saw was criticism and denunciation.
00:17:53.660 And I'm not sure if there's actually trade barriers to importing goods made by these slave labor camps.
00:17:59.820 I need to brief myself more on that.
00:18:01.340 But it would be a shot across the bow of all of Hollywood if the Secretary of State or some trade or commerce secretary were to say,
00:18:13.080 if you film a film in Xinjiang that is not an investigative journalistic piece, that will be treated as if you use slave labor to make masks.
00:18:27.260 I'm just brainstorming here.
00:18:29.160 The thing is, Disney is almost taunting the United States and saying, we've chosen sides here.
00:18:36.460 Not only are we doing business with China, we will do business with the Chinese security apparatus in Xinjiang.
00:18:42.400 And this movie, which we hope to make a billion dollars, is a product of that.
00:18:47.400 Imagine if this movie were deemed in something.
00:18:50.060 Like, I don't believe in censorship and I don't want totalitarian control of the American economy and certainly not the expressive industries like Hollywood.
00:18:57.640 But this is a pretty dramatic flick of the nose to Americans and to Secretary Pompeo by the Disney company.
00:19:05.920 They're basically saying we're going to do business with the worst people in the worst place.
00:19:10.340 Try and stop us.
00:19:11.940 Yeah.
00:19:12.300 A couple of things going on here.
00:19:13.720 So, for instance, even before the Trump administration, the United States had laws against the importation into the U.S. of goods made with forced labor.
00:19:23.320 And what the Trump administration has done is it's actually started to enforce those laws because previous administrations often did not.
00:19:32.160 Also, the Trump administration has been sanctioning a number of entities in Xinjiang.
00:19:38.080 And I think that a few more sanctions are going to be imposed in the not-too-distant future on products coming out of Xinjiang.
00:19:46.820 So, we're moving in the right direction.
00:19:49.200 We obviously need to move faster.
00:19:51.480 But this is, as you point out, controversial because we're talking about the products of intellectual property, which always raise First Amendment and other concerns.
00:20:00.800 You know, it's tough because I know my kids are going to want to watch it.
00:20:05.100 They don't understand what a Uyghur is.
00:20:07.840 They don't understand these issues.
00:20:09.900 They just want to see the newest Disney movie.
00:20:12.440 And I'm sure it's the same with the NBA.
00:20:14.820 People just want to see basketball.
00:20:16.320 And all these popular American cultural industries are lending their reputations to China in a way that we never saw with the Soviet Union and in a way that we don't see with other rogue regimes like North Korea or Iran.
00:20:34.980 It's just China, because it's so economically dominant, every Western capitalist rushes to make a deal.
00:20:43.720 How do we decouple from that?
00:20:46.600 How do we put some distance between us so they're not actually turning our kids and our sports fans and our moviegoers into passive allies of the Communist Party?
00:20:58.820 That's a great question.
00:21:00.440 And I think you start with a number of measures that are already on the books.
00:21:04.900 So, for instance, we know that Nike has a three-decade relationship with a South Korean supplier who has a factory in Qingdao in the northeastern part of China where Uyghurs work under forced labor conditions, essentially slaves.
00:21:21.040 And these are religious and ethnic and racial minorities.
00:21:26.980 So what we need to do is prevent the importation of goods by Nike into the U.S.
00:21:32.860 That's going to start to hurt.
00:21:35.420 You know, in terms of the NBA itself, the comments that it made last year were craven.
00:21:43.220 And this is a more difficult issue.
00:21:45.140 But the way to stop that would be for the president of the United States to use his powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 to prohibit the NBA from certain activities in China.
00:21:58.860 Now, this is going to hurt the NBA, but given what's at stake and you well laid that out, I think that these are steps that we need to take, because obviously we're talking about American values here.
00:22:12.100 And we do not need to raise any more children to believe in totalitarianism, slavery, genocide, and all the rest of it.
00:22:21.460 And that's exactly what's happening right now.
00:22:23.660 Yeah, especially in this current cultural moment where we're talking about the slavery and racism of the past in America, this great national trauma.
00:22:33.540 To turn a blind eye to it in communist China is quite something.
00:22:37.920 What do you think of this idea?
00:22:39.180 And I know you're so busy you've got to run to do more interviews.
00:22:42.340 We're always grateful when you stop by our place.
00:22:45.340 One way that a president could push back in a way that doesn't harm the First Amendment and that isn't really meddlesome is to use the bully pulpit.
00:22:54.380 But I've seen Trump do that with other cultural industries that get too woke, whether it's NFL or NBA or – I mean, he's not shy to speak out and criticize.
00:23:07.380 And maybe if the president – I mean, the trouble with that is America is so polarized, whatever Trump criticizes, some people reflexively defend just to be opposite of Trump.
00:23:17.420 But maybe what we need here is not bans or tariffs or, I don't know, some sort of sanctions, but to change the way we talk about made in China, to denormalize it in general.
00:23:33.380 And it's so ubiquitous it's tough, but to start to get people to say, oh, made in China, that's not a free place, is it?
00:23:40.600 Why is it?
00:23:41.580 And what are the risks?
00:23:42.480 Just to use the bully pulpit to change the reputation of stuff made in a dictatorship.
00:23:49.080 Maybe that's too loosey-goosey and too vague, but what do you think of that?
00:23:54.280 Well, certainly.
00:23:55.000 And President Trump and certainly Secretary of State Pompeo have talked about China's human rights violations.
00:24:03.300 Secretary Pompeo dwelt on this in his July 23 speech at the Nixon Presidential Library,
00:24:10.060 which is a landmark address.
00:24:13.100 So clearly the administration is along that path.
00:24:16.060 But the administration can also use its emergency powers to decouple the Chinese and the American economies.
00:24:24.480 And President Trump has been talking about that most recently in his Labor Day press conference,
00:24:29.420 which I think was incredibly important in some of the things that he said about China.
00:24:35.360 So we're on this road, Ezra.
00:24:38.460 We're not going to get there as fast as I would like.
00:24:41.800 But we have seen President Trump, unlike his predecessors, tackle this issue head on.
00:24:47.780 And we are making progress.
00:24:49.380 Last question, just 10 seconds before we go.
00:24:52.040 Are there any Democrats you can name who are strong on this issue?
00:24:56.120 It would be so much more helpful if this was a bipartisan issue.
00:25:00.700 Can you name a Democrat that's strong on this stuff?
00:25:02.800 Well, before this campaign, which is just warping many people's views,
00:25:10.500 I would say Chuck Schumer, the senator from New York, the minority leader in the Senate,
00:25:15.100 and as well as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
00:25:18.060 They've had some very important things they've said about China.
00:25:21.220 They haven't said them recently because of the campaign, however.
00:25:25.040 Wow.
00:25:25.640 Always an education.
00:25:26.720 You've given me some homework.
00:25:27.760 I'm going to go watch that speech at the Nixon Center,
00:25:29.980 and I'll rewatch Trump's Labor Day press conference.
00:25:32.400 Great to see you again.
00:25:33.300 Thanks so much for your time today.
00:25:35.540 Thank you, Ezra.
00:25:36.300 Well, it's our great pleasure.
00:25:37.640 And once again, I want to advise my viewers to help yourself get smart on issues of China
00:25:43.260 by following Gordon Chang at Gordon G. Chang on Twitter.
00:25:48.940 Stay with us.
00:25:49.600 More ad.
00:25:50.000 Hey, welcome back on my show with Avi Yamini and his arrest.
00:26:07.460 Paul writes, great report from the newest rebel.
00:26:09.700 The cops need to be sued.
00:26:11.020 They need to be publicly shamed.
00:26:12.620 They aren't cops.
00:26:13.420 They're government goons.
00:26:14.300 It needs to be stopped before it spreads.
00:26:15.820 I tell you, that looked like something out of a sci-fi movie, that weird sort of body armor.
00:26:22.440 They looked sort of like exoskeletons or something.
00:26:25.800 I didn't see that when the Black Lives Matter mass protests were in Australia.
00:26:30.760 But boy, they'll come out for a few peaceful folks protesting the lockdown.
00:26:34.600 But remember, Avi wasn't there to protest the lockdown.
00:26:37.600 He was here to point a camera at it and say what he saw.
00:26:39.740 A journalist.
00:26:40.920 They went after him because he was telling the other side of the story.
00:26:43.840 There must be justice there.
00:26:47.500 On using Karen, that word, that name Karen, as an insult, a supporter named Karen writes,
00:26:55.060 Hey, Ezra, I so respect you.
00:26:56.200 You are awesome, amazing, and deserve great respect.
00:26:58.420 Can I ask a huge favor?
00:26:59.780 Can you please try to stop your news, to stop using Karen?
00:27:04.080 You have no idea what it does to a woman named Karen.
00:27:07.420 I thank you for your time and integrity to the truth.
00:27:11.800 What can I say?
00:27:12.880 The word has roots.
00:27:15.000 The word is in common usage.
00:27:17.860 I'm afraid that horse is not the barn.
00:27:19.820 I'm afraid that word is out there.
00:27:21.720 You know, there are other words that have meanings like that.
00:27:25.800 I'm not going to say some of the names that have become, you know, bywords for things.
00:27:31.660 And I am very sorry that the name Karen...
00:27:34.880 I mean, it's not just me.
00:27:35.980 I don't think rebel reporters are using that name more than most.
00:27:40.880 I think it's really become common parlance.
00:27:43.760 My best hope, Karen, is that this whole phase of scolding tattletales wraps up in a few months.
00:27:53.320 And you can go back to being Karen without the baggage that's thrust upon you.
00:27:59.160 If you're watching this show, odds are you're not a stereotypical Karen that has besmirched your fine name.
00:28:06.000 So thank you for writing.
00:28:08.260 Well, that's our show for today.
00:28:09.420 Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home,
00:28:14.160 good night and keep fighting for freedom.
00:28:16.360 We'll see you next time.