Rebel News Podcast - December 22, 2020


Our banker surprised us by calling in our loan — we need to raise $380,000 immediately


Episode Stats


Length

29 minutes

Words per minute

163.7937

Word count

4,770

Sentence count

341

Harmful content

Misogyny

8

sentences flagged

Hate speech

5

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Rebel News is in trouble and needs to pay off $380,000 in the next 5 weeks. Is there a way to turn lemons into lemonade? Listen to the full episode to find out.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hello, my Rebels. Today, I want to tell you something that's been on my mind for a little
00:00:03.880 while, but I haven't really talked about publicly. We have a new banker in charge of our loans,
00:00:09.460 and to our surprise, he's called them all in. We have to pay off what I regarded as a mortgage,
00:00:15.420 a long-term loan. We have to pay it off immediately. I'll tell you the details about it,
00:00:19.520 but we're going to try and turn lemons into lemonade, and I'll tell you what we're going to
00:00:22.700 do. Boy, I hope we can have your support. So that's all I'll say now. I'll let you get straight
00:00:28.540 to the podcast, and listen, I appreciate your help.
00:00:46.840 Tonight, we've got some lemons. I'm going to try and turn them into lemonade. It's December 21st,
00:00:52.460 and this is The Ezra LeVant Show.
00:00:53.880 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
00:00:59.620 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
00:01:03.700 The only thing I have to say to the government about why I'm publishing it is because it's my
00:01:08.300 bloody right to do so.
00:01:14.300 I have a problem, and normally I wouldn't talk about it publicly, but it affects Rebel News,
00:01:18.540 and I think I need some help because I don't think I can solve it all by myself. Like most guys,
00:01:24.140 I don't do very well asking for personal help, especially if it makes me look weak in some way,
00:01:29.200 but I really do need some help, and I'm stressing about it a little bit, so here goes. And you don't
00:01:34.080 have to help if you don't want, but if you can, I'd appreciate it. It would be a real personal
00:01:38.240 favor to me. I've had a banker call in two Rebel News loans, and we have to pay them off right away.
00:01:47.000 We had expected to be able to roll the loans over for another year, as we've done for the past three
00:01:52.800 years, but there's a new boss over there, and they are demanding the money in full. We have to pay off
00:02:00.040 approximately $195,000 by next week, December 28th, and we have to pay off another $185,000 a month later
00:02:11.320 on January 28th. That's a total of $380,000, and obviously that's an incredible burden on us.
00:02:18.700 We were surprised by this. The loan has always been like a mortgage. It has 8.5% interest,
00:02:25.780 so it works out to around $2,500 a month in interest payments, which we treated like a mortgage payment,
00:02:31.820 and we can totally handle $2,500 a month. And every Christmas, the loan was just rolled over.
00:02:38.120 But this year, the banker has asked for all the money back, and he said he'd only let us keep the
00:02:45.180 loan if we now pay double-digit interest rates on it, which we can't afford to do either. So it feels
00:02:51.560 like we're between a rock and a hard place. How am I going to come up with $380,000 in the next five
00:02:57.920 weeks? Instead of stressing about this privately, I thought I'd just ask for help. Why not? It couldn't
00:03:03.800 hurt. Maybe some of our viewers can help. I mean, we crowdfund all the time for other projects. These
00:03:09.380 days, we hire lawyers to help people fight pandemic lockdown fines. We've defended churches and seniors
00:03:16.360 and kids and shopkeepers. We crowdfund for other people all the time. So I thought, well, maybe people
00:03:23.000 won't mind if I ask for help to crowdfund the repayment of this loan. Let me give you some background.
00:03:28.980 Three years ago, when Rebel News was in some choppy waters, we borrowed money from a friendly
00:03:34.780 supporter to help tide us over. It was actually specifically to do more journalism. Our lender
00:03:41.440 was a great guy who actually was a generous donor to us, too, and a real friend. We used that money
00:03:48.220 not just to get through the hard times, but to build up our company, including to hire new talent
00:03:54.300 to do great reporting across the country and around the world. In many ways, I think Rebel News has
00:04:00.660 never been better. Now, along the way, our friend who loaned us the money ran into a change of
00:04:07.360 circumstance himself, and he had to sell our loan to a banker who doesn't know us and who isn't a
00:04:13.940 supporter. He's not a bad guy. He just is a banker who wants his money back, and under the terms of the
00:04:20.280 contract, he can ask for it back. He doesn't actually have to renew the loan, and he has what's
00:04:27.120 called a general security agreement, basically a mortgage on all of our property, from our cameras
00:04:32.820 to our computers, everything, and he's calling in the loan now. I wish he wouldn't, but he's a banker.
00:04:40.100 He's not like our old friend who actually gave the loan to us three years ago. We have to pay it. I'm not
00:04:45.480 even mad at him. It's his right, and we really did use the money to our benefit these years, so I guess
00:04:52.180 I need your help. If you're in a position to replace this loan or part of it, let me know. I mean, if you
00:04:59.840 are in a position to lend us $380,000, send me an email to ezra at rebelnews.com. If you're in a
00:05:06.780 position to lend us some money and think eight and a half percent is a good rate of return, just write to
00:05:12.460 me, but I think this is sort of an unrealistic hope that someone would just lend us that large amount of
00:05:19.040 money on such short notice. If I were with 99 percent of the media in Canada, I know exactly what I would
00:05:26.160 do. I would just call up Justin Trudeau and sign up for his media bailout, and I would just get free money
00:05:32.920 from the government. Trudeau loves collecting little house pets in the media, but I'm not a prostitute. I won't let him
00:05:40.580 rent me. I'd have to agree to be a good liberal boy and obey this guy. So how will this work? How
00:05:47.540 are you going to regulate websites? How are you going to register all that? Do you buy these
00:05:51.780 recommendations? Well, I mean, one of the recommendations, so you're talking about a
00:05:58.640 couple of different things here, but as far as the licensing is concerned, is if you're a distributor
00:06:04.080 of content in Canada, and obviously, you know, if you're a very small media organization, the
00:06:11.040 requirement probably wouldn't be the same as if you're Facebook or Google. So there would have to
00:06:18.880 be some proportionality embedded into this, but we would ask that they have a license. Yes.
00:06:25.080 Yeah, frankly, I'd rather Rebel News go out of business than take a cent from those guys. So if
00:06:31.840 it's unlikely that I can find a miracle lender in the next week, and if I won't go to Trudeau for a
00:06:37.740 bailout, maybe you can help me not with $380,000, but maybe with $38 or even $380. Can you please help
00:06:47.600 us? We really did put the money towards good things. We hired new staff. We've done great journalism,
00:06:54.620 and we've done important investigations that no one else has done, and most importantly, we've told
00:07:00.420 the other side of the story, especially during the pandemic lockdown. That's what we need this money
00:07:05.960 for, to do our journalism. So if you can, please go to helprebelnews.com and help me pay off these two
00:07:13.200 loans, which are due right now. I promise that in return, we'll stay focused on what's important, on what
00:07:18.980 we do best, news, commentary, and activism, fighting back. And if you give us a generous gift, we'll put
00:07:26.820 your name on our wall here in the office for our entire staff to see every day. I don't think I've
00:07:33.760 shown this to you before. It's all the people who donated to our crowdfunding campaign to build
00:07:39.060 our studio years ago. We still see all of your names every day, and your messages. Well, we have
00:07:46.900 another wall that's bare. I propose to put on it all the names of people who help us burn the mortgage.
00:07:53.300 If you help me pay down this $380,000 loan that frankly caught us by surprise, I'll put your name
00:08:00.480 up there if you donate $100 at helprebelnews.com. We'll put your name up on a brick with a short message.
00:08:08.120 If you donate $380,000, imagine if a thousand people did that. We could retire the whole loan
00:08:15.580 that way. We'll give you not just a brick, but we'll engrave your name on a list on a brass plaque
00:08:22.940 that will hang on our wall right next to our YouTube plaques that celebrate our 100,000th
00:08:28.940 and our millionth subscribers. And if you think this is a good time and a good reason to really help us
00:08:35.980 out, and if you can afford to chip in $3,800, we'll give you a whole block. We'll call it a
00:08:43.080 cornerstone. We'll put you on a special plaque for cornerstone buyers, and we'll give you a copy
00:08:49.760 of all of our books signed by the authors. And if you're someone who has the ability to help us beyond
00:08:57.540 our wildest expectations, if you're in a position to donate $38,000, we will name a room of our office
00:09:05.740 for you, our boardroom, our video editing room, or even my favorite room, the kitchen lunchroom.
00:09:11.860 Look, we never thought we'd have to repay this mortgage in an emergency. It was always just
00:09:16.500 renewed, and we could handle paying $2,500 a month in interest like a regular mortgage payment. But then
00:09:22.340 the loan was acquired by a new banker, and he just doesn't care. We've never done such important
00:09:27.420 work as we're doing now. I don't want this to knock us off course. Let's turn lemons into lemonade.
00:09:32.780 Please help Rebel News. Go to helprebelnews.com, and we can pay down this debt and get back to
00:09:39.240 business. And if you're able to buy a brick, whether it's a $100 brick, or a $380 engraving,
00:09:45.220 or a $3,800 cornerstone, or even a whole room, your name will forever grace our walls. And if you
00:09:53.240 are an amazing guardian angel who wants to name our lunchroom or our boardroom, well, this is the
00:09:58.780 time, my friends. 2020 was a terrible year for the world, but it was the year that we at Rebel News
00:10:04.940 proved our importance by telling the other side of the story. Please help us pay down this surprise
00:10:10.420 mortgage call so we can do even more important work in the year ahead. Please visit helprebelnews.com.
00:10:19.100 Thank you, and Merry Christmas.
00:10:20.440 Merry Christmas.
00:10:29.120 You guys just need to walk off.
00:10:38.280 Hey, orcs, orcs, orcs.
00:10:40.940 Ocean, get on the f***ing ground before you get down here. 1.00
00:10:44.220 Get on the f***ing ground!
00:10:44.800 Why are you right here?
00:10:45.320 Get on the f***ing ground!
00:10:47.360 Right now!
00:10:48.000 Ocean.
00:10:48.460 Get on the ground before I f***ing teaser you. 1.00
00:10:52.020 Oh, shit.
00:10:52.720 Right now.
00:10:53.560 Why are you teasering?
00:10:55.820 It was crazy.
00:10:57.060 Like, I was so shocked.
00:10:58.620 Like, I came out here to play hockey, and I got arrested for playing hockey.
00:11:02.480 That shocking footage has been seen tens of millions of times around the world.
00:11:09.020 Even TMZ, the celebrity tabloid website out of Hollywood, focused on it.
00:11:15.780 It's so incredible.
00:11:16.560 It's an incredible Canadian story.
00:11:19.480 A young man, Ocean Weisblatt is his name, threatened with a tasering for not getting off an ice rink in Calgary.
00:11:30.020 And by the way, I should point out that ice rink was officially opened by the city of Calgary.
00:11:35.820 There were, you know, there was a sign saying it was open.
00:11:38.340 It had been zambonied by the city.
00:11:42.280 Completely out of control, cops.
00:11:44.180 And our own Kian Bextie was on the scene with the story.
00:11:49.020 Kian joins us now.
00:11:50.300 Why is Skype from Calgary?
00:11:51.880 There were so many things about this story that make it newsworthy.
00:11:55.880 Kian, lockdown, Canadian hockey, nice young kid, Ocean Weisblatt.
00:12:01.480 The tasering was shocking.
00:12:03.900 You did a wonderful report, and we're going to show a clip from it in a minute.
00:12:06.640 But what is so surprising and disappointing to me is how most of the mainstream media has cheered for the tasering cops here.
00:12:18.400 In fact, they don't even mention the tasering because that looks too bad. 1.00
00:12:21.240 They're cheering for the cops against the kid.
00:12:23.480 That's weird to me.
00:12:24.420 Yeah, it's really strange.
00:12:27.740 And part of their coverage was what was so strange of it was that their coverage neglected to even mention that the kid had the crap beaten out of him, right?
00:12:39.400 Like he was kneed in the gut.
00:12:41.120 He was kneed in the groin, on the hip.
00:12:42.640 And then they pulled out a taser when these two incompetent police officers couldn't bring this kid to the ground.
00:12:49.920 They resorted to, you know, tasers can kill people.
00:12:52.680 They resorted to what could have been lethal force, especially on the ice, because they couldn't do their job.
00:12:57.740 And the media didn't mention that.
00:13:00.300 They just mentioned that, oh, you know, there's this kid who's not following the rules, and we all got to be locked down right now because, you know, staying home saves lives.
00:13:07.720 But, you know, the police are the ones that are really putting lives in danger.
00:13:11.260 You know, there are some police rules of engagement.
00:13:16.340 One of them involves high-speed chases, for example.
00:13:19.760 It's sort of a rule of thumb that police very rarely engage in high-speed chases because the risks are simply too high.
00:13:28.840 Other examples are to de-escalate situations.
00:13:32.300 These two cops, screaming at him, swearing at him, drawing a taser when he's just saying, what did I do wrong?
00:13:41.220 What's the rule?
00:13:42.600 Those police show they don't have emotional self-control.
00:13:46.760 And when you've got someone with a taser and a real gun in their other holster, not to have emotional control of themselves, to go so crazy on a kid just who's standing on an ice rink, I think that's what's shocking.
00:14:04.360 I mean, yeah, kicking the kid, cutting his skates off his feet.
00:14:08.700 I've never heard of anything so weird.
00:14:10.700 Throwing him in the back of a police car, that's all weird and crazy.
00:14:14.380 But the fact that we don't yet even know the names of these officers, that they're still presumably on the force, that is actually the shocking story of the day.
00:14:26.060 Yeah, and that's why we put together a petition at helpocean.ca to condemn these officers, to condemn the police force that enabled this, and to condemn Nenshi and demand a personal apology be sent from Nenshi.
00:14:40.760 Because Nenshi is the one that controls the Calgary Police Service.
00:14:43.660 Lots of people want to say that it is the provincial government, but that's not really true.
00:14:48.760 The line of, you know, the chief of police reports to Nenshi, and Nenshi has asked the chief of police to enforce these COVID restrictions more than they already have been.
00:14:58.560 In fact, that very day is when they started doubling down on this.
00:15:01.940 So Nenshi needs to apologize.
00:15:03.380 The police need to fire these two officers because, you know, not only did they act horrendously in that situation, but when is the next time they can't take down someone who's actually a threat?
00:15:13.900 To the community, to Calgary.
00:15:15.960 What happens if, you know, it's someone with a gun and they're wrestling over a gun?
00:15:19.140 These two incompetent officers wouldn't be able to deal with an actual criminal if they saw one.
00:15:23.800 Yeah, I mean, I couldn't help but chuckle.
00:15:25.900 I mean, he's just a hockey player saying, what's going on?
00:15:28.300 What's going on?
00:15:28.980 And they're both, uh, uh, uh, uh.
00:15:30.520 And it's like play fighting with him.
00:15:31.800 They couldn't tip him over.
00:15:33.260 They were kicking him.
00:15:34.260 They were, like, it was sort of embarrassing.
00:15:35.720 He's just sort of, what's going on?
00:15:37.680 What's going on?
00:15:38.680 And, I mean, those cops, they have no moral authority.
00:15:41.960 They command no respect.
00:15:43.140 They have no charisma.
00:15:44.020 They have no way to affect an order other than to shoot.
00:15:47.800 That is a dangerous ticking time bomb.
00:15:50.020 I want to show you another, uh, clip.
00:15:51.940 This is also from the Calgary police.
00:15:53.920 This is at a anti-lockdown rally.
00:15:56.160 I've never seen anything like this.
00:15:57.520 The police grabbed people from the crowd, pull them over, pound them, and then release
00:16:02.780 them.
00:16:03.000 It's some weird catch and release.
00:16:04.720 This looks more like something from Moscow than Calgary.
00:16:07.820 Take a look at this just for a second.
00:16:09.220 I can't believe in Russia!
00:16:37.620 I can't help you.
00:17:07.620 I can't help you.
00:17:37.620 What were they doing crushing that guy's skull, like just crushing his head against the pavement?
00:18:00.640 I don't even know what the policing tactic is there.
00:18:04.260 Just physically beat people up as a personal deterrent?
00:18:09.180 This is so shocking to me.
00:18:11.640 But I suppose, I mean, I'm a former Calgarian.
00:18:13.640 I suppose it shouldn't be shocking to me anymore because that city has fallen so far.
00:18:17.640 I think, you mentioned the province.
00:18:20.380 I think there comes a point where Casey Madu, the attorney general, has to take charge of the police
00:18:27.720 because they're being abusive.
00:18:30.740 I think they're being a bit brutal.
00:18:32.580 I think they're dangerous.
00:18:33.460 And I think the problem starts at the chief level.
00:18:36.180 I'm not a fan of premiers coming in and meddling with local affairs.
00:18:41.440 But seriously, if they keep this up, it's just gone too far.
00:18:45.620 Give me a quick word on that other beating video.
00:18:47.820 And then I want to play a clip from your interview with Ocean Weisblatt in a second.
00:18:52.960 Yeah, it just, I've been in that very location where that took place.
00:18:56.800 And I interviewed people there very frequently.
00:18:59.240 And I expected something like that would happen, you know, when I went to Hong Kong last November,
00:19:04.400 when the riot police were absolutely terrorizing their own citizens.
00:19:09.840 I never expected that within a year that would be happening in the streets of my hometown.
00:19:15.600 A police officer doesn't have the right to come and rough someone up.
00:19:19.540 I mean, they barely have that right when they're arresting someone.
00:19:22.760 They don't have that right when they're not arresting someone.
00:19:25.000 You don't just beat the hell out of someone and say, all right, you learned your lesson.
00:19:28.400 Get on with it.
00:19:29.860 That's not how our justice system works. 0.98
00:19:32.600 That's not how law enforcement works.
00:19:34.780 That officer should be ashamed of himself.
00:19:37.080 Yeah, I thought that was very strange, very un-Calgarian. 1.00
00:19:40.240 Now, I want to throw to your interview.
00:19:42.300 And I want to run a few minutes of this because it was really good.
00:19:44.920 Ocean Weisblatt comes across as a really good kid.
00:19:47.600 And what I like about this is in the background, you're at that very hockey ice, like it's on an arena.
00:19:54.600 It's an outdoor ice patch, really.
00:19:57.820 It was Zambonied by the city. 1.00
00:20:00.100 So it's an official place.
00:20:01.960 What's so interesting is that hockey's going on right as you interview them because that's normal because hockey is allowed.
00:20:10.300 These cops were on some insane misguided mission.
00:20:13.260 And by the way, Ocean was repeatedly saying, what's going on?
00:20:16.920 What did I do wrong?
00:20:17.680 What's the law?
00:20:18.180 And they couldn't answer because they couldn't know.
00:20:20.420 And the more frustrated they became, the more violent they became.
00:20:23.880 Let's throw to your clip interviewing Ocean at the hockey rink. 0.91
00:20:28.040 So me and the boys, you know, we were just going out to the outdoor rink as usual.
00:20:35.120 And, you know, winter sports, we all headed out here to Southwood where we play outdoor rink hockey.
00:20:44.240 And we came to play hockey just like another day.
00:20:49.940 And a peace officer came by and they just gave us a warning that two cops were going to come.
00:20:59.180 And then everyone started, a lot of people started just running away.
00:21:05.020 And then me and like four other guys, we just said, you know, like we're playing hockey.
00:21:12.740 Like this is outrageous with all this COVID stuff and not letting us play hockey, not letting us go outdoors.
00:21:19.500 But we're going to have all these indoor buildings opening up, all these indoor social gatherings.
00:21:27.800 And it's, you know, it just doesn't make any sense to me.
00:21:30.540 And we were just playing hockey.
00:21:32.360 So we decided to stay and not run away from the cops.
00:21:35.740 And the cops came by and we were, me and the boys were just sitting over there by the bench.
00:21:43.440 And then I just saw like these kids getting, they were being talked to by the cops.
00:21:48.980 And then I wasn't, I didn't know what was said, but like I just felt like I had to go over there just because it was a younger crowd.
00:21:56.220 So just as an older person, just making sure like everything's okay.
00:22:00.360 So I just went over there, didn't know what was going on, but just asked the cop, you know, just like, you know, pretty much just told her.
00:22:10.900 Like, I'm not sure what's going on with these COVID rules.
00:22:14.360 Like everything's, everything indoors open.
00:22:17.220 Like you guys got all the malls open.
00:22:18.880 You got all these businesses open, but like can't let us play hockey out here.
00:22:22.760 And it doesn't make sense.
00:22:24.620 Everyone's skiing.
00:22:25.420 Everyone's doing all these winter sports and it's life.
00:22:28.160 It's what we should be doing.
00:22:29.060 We should be enjoying life.
00:22:30.340 Like we only get one life and you should be doing what you want to do in life.
00:22:34.500 And, you know, I, I asked, I, I asked her that and then she said I was breaking the, I was breaking the, what is it called?
00:22:46.500 Public health orders.
00:22:47.880 Yeah, public health orders.
00:22:48.940 Yeah.
00:22:49.440 And yeah, I was breaking, apparently I was breaking one of the public health orders and I wasn't aware of that.
00:22:56.120 You know, I kind of just got off news, got off social media just because everything's just on social media.
00:23:02.780 It's crazy. It's all negative.
00:23:04.300 So I just wanted to get off that.
00:23:06.800 So I just came out to play like an ordinary, another hockey day.
00:23:11.440 And she said I was breaking the public health act.
00:23:14.340 And I just asked like, what was I breaking?
00:23:16.400 And she didn't tell me.
00:23:18.540 She just said I was just breaking public health act.
00:23:21.540 And that's strange to me because even Mayor Nenshi, this like radical mayor who really sort of seems to enjoy rubbing this in, into like salt in the wound of his people.
00:23:33.960 He said that it's fine to play hockey as long as it's not too big.
00:23:36.800 Yeah.
00:23:37.080 And from what you told me earlier, there was only 15 people on the rink.
00:23:40.900 And by the time they, the police were really getting testy with you, you were the last one on the rink.
00:23:45.500 So what, what public health order could you possibly have been breaking at that moment when they decide to pull out a taser?
00:23:51.020 Yeah.
00:23:51.280 Like that was my point.
00:23:52.280 Like that's why I was talking to them because it's a joke.
00:23:55.380 It's literally a joke.
00:23:56.640 Like we have 15 players out here skating, playing a hockey game.
00:24:00.980 We're having fun.
00:24:02.180 We're living life.
00:24:02.940 Well, I think he comes across very well.
00:24:04.800 And I think that the fact that the police are doubling down on this discredits the rest of the police force.
00:24:11.900 These were two rogue officers, clearly affirmative action hires.
00:24:15.760 They were very small women who cannot impose themselves on the world and so reach for the taser and were swearing, very unprofessional. 1.00
00:24:23.840 The fact that the chief has chosen to stand in solidarity with his gender quota cops here and to approve of this brutality, I think is deeply discrediting.
00:24:34.320 And it may come to the point where Casey Madu in the province has to take over the Calgary police directly and just, just clean that whole house.
00:24:41.020 Last word to you, Kian. 1.00
00:24:43.320 The police, whether they're in Calgary or Toronto, need the respect of the people that they are enforcing the law on to be able to do their job properly.
00:24:51.820 And if they lose that respect, and it should be a mutual respect, if they lose that, then, then they won't be able to do the important things like catching criminals, breaking apart sex trafficking rings.
00:25:04.280 They, they have real important work to be doing and beating the hell out of kids is not one of them.
00:25:10.020 Yeah, you're so right.
00:25:11.040 Robert Peel, really the founder of modern Western policing.
00:25:15.220 It's where the phrase Bobbies came from. 0.99
00:25:17.860 That's why British police are called Bobbies. 1.00
00:25:19.680 He said, it all rests on the consent of the citizens.
00:25:24.340 Unless you're willing to have a full police state, the only way to have the light touch policing we've come to love in the West is by having the support and cooperation and respect and even the love of citizens.
00:25:36.820 And I feel like in the last six months, police forces have torched literally a century of public support for what?
00:25:45.280 To help out some politicians in some ephemeral authoritarian power trip.
00:25:49.780 I find it deeply depressing.
00:25:50.900 As you mentioned at the end of your video, we've offered legal help to Ocean. 0.83
00:25:57.220 In fact, I should tell you, Keen, I just spoke to him on the phone moments ago, and I gave him some advice on how to approach lawyers.
00:26:03.480 We've offered to help him.
00:26:04.720 If he wants our help, we're there.
00:26:06.720 I think he's trying to do this on his own, so we're giving him some tips.
00:26:09.620 But we like to help people who are in this sort of trouble.
00:26:14.280 So if you know someone who's been treated like Ocean, or God forbid, that bad, or even just got a ticket, have them go to fightthefines.com.
00:26:23.740 If you want to sign our petition, go to helpocean.ca.
00:26:28.160 And last I checked, we have over 12,000 signatures there in just one day.
00:26:32.960 So obviously, this is ringing a bell with people.
00:26:34.720 Keen, more great work on your part.
00:26:36.340 Thank you for that.
00:26:37.280 I know you're working on some very exciting projects over the Christmas break, and you're going to come back with a bang in the New Year, so I can hardly wait for that.
00:26:45.360 Great.
00:26:45.640 Thanks so much, Ezra.
00:26:46.360 All right.
00:26:46.620 You take care.
00:26:47.140 There you have it, Keen Bextie, who, besides being our reporter in Calgary, I should let you know that at our recent in-house Rebel Awards we call the Rebbies, he won the Brave Adventurer Award.
00:27:01.100 Stay with us.
00:27:01.800 More ahead.
00:27:07.280 Hey, welcome back on my show Friday.
00:27:15.520 David writes,
00:27:16.980 Ezra, I'm pretty sure the insult pig in the wig is like, you know, pig in a blanket insult, not meaning fat, as in a wiener made me laugh.
00:27:25.300 Oh, okay.
00:27:27.060 You know what?
00:27:27.700 I wasn't thinking that way, but fair enough.
00:27:30.040 You never know.
00:27:30.520 I mean, the Brits have a funny sense of humor, don't they?
00:27:33.360 Nellis writes, beware the thought police on Twitter.
00:27:36.600 Oh, yeah.
00:27:37.240 On Twitter, they're bad, but they're in real life now, in real life, with real guns and tasers.
00:27:43.380 Bruce writes, thanks for all those funny cameos.
00:27:46.000 I was especially surprised at John Cleese still being alive.
00:27:48.720 Congratulations to all the Rebbe Award winners.
00:27:51.480 John Cleese is around, and, you know, he's a bit of a liberal these days, but, I mean, most of the cameos, as you can see, they're sort of strangers, and you just give them the little script.
00:27:59.500 But some of them were real friends, and it was a really nice night to show which rebels, I mean, we've got a lot of great people here, but there were some who really just had an outstanding year, and we were glad to recognize them.
00:28:12.480 That's our show for today.
00:28:13.460 Listen, if you can help us out, I was sort of surprised.
00:28:16.840 We've always just rolled these loans over.
00:28:18.580 We pay our mortgage payment, and we just assumed the loan would keep going at the 8.5% interest rate, and then all of a sudden the banker said, no, pay it off.
00:28:26.820 And I'm not even mad at the guy.
00:28:28.020 He's not hostile to Rebel News.
00:28:30.160 He's just a banker.
00:28:31.200 He's not a supporter like the original lender was, so we're in a bit of a pickle.
00:28:35.240 If you can help us out, go to helprebelnews.com.
00:28:37.800 I appreciate it.
00:28:38.680 All right, that's it for today.
00:28:39.880 Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night.
00:28:45.200 Keep fighting for freedom.
00:28:46.180 Keep fighting for freedom.