Rebel News Podcast - World's dirtiest comedian wants Facebook to censor mean jokes

00:00:00.000 Hey folks, today I go through a speech that Sacha Baron Cohen gave at a Democrat lobby

00:00:06.180 group called the ADL.

00:00:08.120 I've got about 29 video clips in it, so I wish you could see it.

00:00:12.680 You'll hear it just fine on the podcast, but I want to invite you to become a Rebel Premium

00:00:17.220 subscriber so you can see the video version.

00:00:19.540 Just go to premium.rebelnews.com.

00:00:22.920 It's eight bucks a month, that's no big deal.

00:00:24.620 Come on.

00:00:25.480 All right, here's the podcast.

00:00:30.000 Tonight, the world's dirtiest comedian comes out against mean jokes.

00:00:46.260 He wants them censored by Facebook.

00:00:48.880 It's November 28th and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:00:53.460 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?

00:00:57.100 There's 8,500 customers here and you won't give them an answer.

00:01:01.440 The only thing I have to say to the government about why I'm publishing it is because it's

00:01:05.820 my bloody right to do so.

00:01:12.260 I like Sacha Baron Cohen's jokes.

00:01:15.440 In fact, by coincidence, over the past few weeks I've been showing you little clips from

00:01:19.120 one of his movies called Talladega Nights, where he plays a gay French race car driver who competes

00:01:25.360 in NASCAR against redneck race car drivers. 0.78

00:01:28.600 It's really funny.

00:01:30.880 Sacha Baron Cohen, he's made it big in America, but for years he was just a phenomenon in his

00:01:37.660 home country of the UK.

00:01:39.500 He played a bunch of characters, including a young black Muslim character called Ali G.

00:01:44.900 Every possible racial stereotype.

00:01:48.740 Booyakasha, check this out, yo.

00:01:51.700 I is here with my main woman, Naomi Wolf.

00:01:55.860 She be well-important feminist and has like written enough books about that kind of stuff. 1.00

00:02:04.760 Do you think that women should have equal rights in the workplace? 1.00

00:02:10.000 Yeah, do you?

00:02:10.720 Well, ain't there the problem that if they start getting them dead, then there's going

00:02:14.800 to start asking for them at home.

00:02:16.800 I'm not sure if he was in blackface or brownface or whatever you'd say, but he pretended to be

00:02:22.840 Muslim and he went full on with the stereotypes.

00:02:27.300 What's funny is that he came to America in character as Ali G and he did interviews with

00:02:33.480 public figures and tried to trick them into going along with his ridiculous nature.

00:02:37.800 Trump was one of the public figures to immediately see through it and leave the interview.

00:02:43.980 Most, however, didn't.

00:02:45.900 Anyways, Cohen's big breakthrough in America was playing another character, another Muslim

00:02:51.680 character actually, Borat, who came from Kazakhstan.

00:02:58.060 Same thing.

00:02:58.720 He came to America in character before people knew who he was, so no one was alert to his joke.

00:03:04.480 And half the jokes were just seeing how far he could go before Americans broke and stopped 0.73

00:03:10.740 being polite to him.

00:03:11.720 It was actually a testament to how welcoming Americans were to some rude foreigner. 1.00

00:03:16.560 It wasn't a test of American rudeness.

00:03:18.640 It was American politeness on display.

00:03:21.580 I personally thought it was an extremely funny movie.

00:03:24.620 And even if you don't agree, even if you think it wasn't funny, it was obviously someone trying

00:03:32.780 to be funny.

00:03:33.300 It was an attempt at humor.

00:03:35.140 Cohen is Jewish himself in real life, but Borat was an anti-Semitic character.

00:03:41.080 And he portrayed Kazakhstan that way.

00:03:44.180 Here's a scene called The Running of the Jew. 0.86

00:03:47.620 The Running of the Jew. 0.90

00:04:17.620 Now, I'm sorry.

00:04:30.540 I thought that was funny.

00:04:31.440 Now, it was also racist, I guess, but it's funny.

00:04:34.380 Can I say that because I'm Jewish?

00:04:36.300 Now, that was a produced segment in a big Hollywood movie.

00:04:40.360 But in character, Borat went to a real country-western bar, and this was before people knew who he

00:04:46.660 was, and he started singing a song.

00:04:49.300 And halfway through the song, once he got the whole bar into it, he changed the lyrics

00:04:55.300 to, from Throw Transport Down the Well, which doesn't mean anything, to Throw the Jew Down the Well. 0.62

00:05:03.240 Now, again, I've got to tell you, I thought that was really, really funny.

00:05:25.700 Kazakhstan, by the way, doesn't think he's funny.

00:05:29.720 They said it genuinely hurt the country's reputation.

00:05:32.940 They said they're not an anti-Semitic country.

00:05:35.840 The Romanian town that Cohen filmed in, pretending it was Kazakhstan, they sued him, too.

00:05:44.520 I'm not much for suing over jokes, and certainly Cohen wasn't.

00:05:48.600 He fought off all these lawsuits, of course.

00:05:51.700 And that's the thing.

00:05:52.440 I'm trying to show you a comedian who made people laugh by making racist and anti-Semitic

00:05:58.600 jokes, anti-Muslim jokes, anti-gay jokes, too, or just call them gay jokes, I guess.

00:06:04.400 I'm not sure if this is pro-gay or anti-gay.

00:06:07.100 How many years have you been straight?

00:06:09.980 I've been straight all my life.

00:06:11.700 What?

00:06:12.300 I've never had a homosexual relationship.

00:06:15.480 So what, you've never had a walk on the brown side?

00:06:18.060 Never.

00:06:19.480 So if I were to give you a lap dance right here and now, you're telling me you wouldn't

00:06:23.420 be turned on?

00:06:25.160 Absolutely not, because it's forbidden by the word of God.

00:06:28.760 Okay, can I try?

00:06:30.020 No.

00:06:32.000 Are you scared that you'll be turned on?

00:06:33.940 No.

00:06:34.780 Now, this is him, too.

00:06:36.280 He also made a movie called The Dictator, where he played a version of Saddam Hussein, really

00:06:42.520 just a generic Muslim terrorist dictator. 0.98

00:06:45.980 My point is, he was an equal opportunity insulter.

00:06:50.400 If you don't like it, don't watch it.

00:06:52.600 A lot of people do watch.

00:06:53.980 A lot of people don't.

00:06:54.940 A lot of people pretend to be offended, but secretly watch and laugh.

00:06:59.620 It's like Howard Stern, or even our old friend Gavin McInnes.

00:07:03.820 I mean, comedians making edgy jokes is really one of the definitions of comedy.

00:07:10.180 Often it's people making fun of their own race.

00:07:12.800 That's safer, I guess.

00:07:14.540 Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy, a lot of black comedians drop the N-word nonstop.

00:07:19.500 I think it would be, well, it would be unfunny, maybe, if a white comedian did it.

00:07:24.040 I think so, because the meaning would be different, right?

00:07:25.780 But again, it's a matter of taste.

00:07:29.260 Usually people stick to making fun of themselves or their own kind.

00:07:33.000 Here's Sarah Silverman, a Jewish comedian, and this is years ago.

00:07:38.220 Forgive the grainy footage, it's a copy of a copy.

00:07:40.980 Here she is, a Jewish comedian, making fun, making jokes about the Holocaust. 0.83

00:07:46.820 She called me up and she's like, you know, Aunt Sarah, did you know that Hitler killed 60 million Jews?

00:07:53.360 And I corrected her and I said, you know, I think, I think he's responsible for killing 6 million Jews. 0.93

00:08:01.760 And she said, oh yeah, 6 million, I knew that.

00:08:04.620 But seriously, I mean, what's the difference?

00:08:10.640 The difference is 60 million is unforgivable, young lady. 0.69

00:08:14.880 My Nana was a survivor of the Holocaust, or I'm sorry, alleged Holocaust.

00:08:22.740 And she, she had the tattoo, you know, the number, and thank God she was at one of the better concentration camps. 1.00

00:08:30.840 She had a vanity number, it said, be dazzled, which is kind of fun.

00:08:36.920 I believe that if black people were in Germany during World War II, that the Holocaust would have never happened.

00:08:44.880 I do, you know, or not to Jews.

00:08:52.440 Sarah Silverman used to tell a lot of ethnic jokes, and not just about her own group.

00:08:59.300 She told ethnic jokes about other groups, and they didn't always like it so much.

00:09:03.520 Here she is on a TV panel with a Chinese activist, Chinese advocate, and she was defending this joke. 0.60

00:09:13.080 It's a joke about getting a jury duty notice, and you've got to fill out this form, and you send it in, and you're randomly selected, and I don't want to do jury duty.

00:09:22.020 No one does.

00:09:22.720 So I'm filling out the form, and my friend said, why don't you write something really inappropriate, like, I hate chinks, you know? 1.00

00:09:27.780 And I'm thinking, yeah, but when you think about it, I don't want people to think that of me.

00:09:31.840 You know, I just want to get out of jury duty.

00:09:33.340 So I just filled out the form, and I wrote, I love chinks. 0.89

00:09:40.080 Thank you.

00:09:44.480 That's a joke.

00:09:45.680 Now, I should tell you, it's hard to find Sarah Silverman's old, edgy jokes online.

00:09:52.060 I think they've been purged.

00:09:54.160 Try Googling for them yourself.

00:09:55.620 You'll have difficulty.

00:09:56.580 I don't know if Google is hiding them out of some sort of censorship, or if Silverman and her agents are burying them and knocking them down.

00:10:06.340 I think she's gotten very politically correct these days.

00:10:08.500 Preachy, lefty, not as funny.

00:10:12.320 But no one went as far and as hard as Sacha Baron Cohen.

00:10:16.040 No one.

00:10:16.460 Which is why I think it's so gross and so shocking and so unfunny to see him give a speech the other day at the Anti-Defamation League, which is a left-wing censorship group based in the United States.

00:10:30.920 Once upon a time, the Anti-Defamation League, the ADL, fought against anti-Semitism in America.

00:10:37.640 But look, anti-Semitism in America is pretty much gone.

00:10:41.840 I don't know if it was ever that anti-Semitic to begin with.

00:10:45.060 America just isn't anti-Semitic anymore systematically at all.

00:10:51.360 Except for new Muslim immigrants, I think, who were bringing anti-Semitism with them from their old homelands like Syria or Pakistan. 0.56

00:11:01.380 Real Borats, I guess, are coming to America. 0.94

00:11:05.960 But for some reason, the ADL doesn't seem to go after them.

00:11:09.140 They're pretty gentle with the squad.

00:11:12.160 And I think it's because the ADL is really just a Democratic Party front group now.

00:11:17.680 Their CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, is a former senior aide to Barack Obama.

00:11:23.240 So they're not really focused on fighting anti-Semitism.

00:11:26.640 They're more interested in fighting against Republicans or conservatives, which isn't where most anti-Semitism comes from these days in America.

00:11:34.320 But the ADL is very interested in censorship for that reason.

00:11:40.260 They want to shut down conservatives who are strong on the Internet.

00:11:43.140 And so last week, Sacha Baron Cohen, king of the anti-Semitic jokes, king of the anti-Muslim jokes, of the anti-gay jokes, the anti-black jokes,

00:11:52.940 he actually gave a speech at that censorship organization, the ADL, calling for censorship.

00:12:02.540 This guy.

00:12:03.840 Throw the jewel down the well.

00:12:06.100 That guy's calling for censorship of mean jokes.

00:12:09.640 I want to show you some clips from his speech.

00:12:13.480 It's really quite something.

00:12:14.780 Thank you, the Anti-Defamation League, for this recognition and your work in fighting racism, hate, and bigotry.

00:12:23.060 And to be clear, when I say racism, hate, and bigotry, I'm not referring to the names of Stephen Miller's labradoodles.

00:12:30.620 He's talking about an aide to Donald Trump named Stephen Miller.

00:12:34.600 So you can see what this is really about.

00:12:37.080 It's about fighting Republicans, not fighting anti-Semitism.

00:12:40.260 In fact, Stephen Miller himself is Jewish.

00:12:42.700 I realize that my presence here may also be unexpected for another reason.

00:12:48.040 At times, some critics have said my comedy risks reinforcing old stereotypes.

00:12:54.820 The truth is, I've been passionate about challenging bigotry and intolerance throughout my life.

00:13:01.140 As a teenager in England, I marched against the fascist National Front and to abolish apartheid.

00:13:07.220 As an undergraduate, I traveled around America and wrote my thesis about the civil rights movement with the help of the archives of the ADL.

00:13:16.300 And as a comedian, I've tried to use my characters to get people to let down their guard and reveal what they actually believe, including their own prejudice.

00:13:25.960 Okay, got it.

00:13:28.080 So that's what you were doing.

00:13:30.560 All right.

00:13:31.240 When you were portraying Kazakhstan as an anti-Semitic mob that had the running of the Jew,

00:13:37.940 you were just being ironic or trying to teach us a lesson or something.

00:13:44.780 Now, look, I thought that was funny, but it's a very Trudeau thing to say,

00:13:49.560 Hey, guys, when I was making the anti-Semitic jokes, it was really a moment for you to learn? 0.56

00:13:55.380 Yeah, no.

00:13:57.060 Now, listen, I think Borat's hilarious.

00:14:00.360 I think Ali G's hilarious.

00:14:02.300 I think Bruno and his other characters that flopped were a little less funny.

00:14:06.480 I laughed guilty laughs at all of them, though.

00:14:09.320 I mean, even Sarah Silverman's jokes are funny.

00:14:13.580 Something can be rude and also be funny.

00:14:16.480 Something can be racist and also be funny.

00:14:19.000 It's not nice to say, I know that, but Sacha Baron Cohen isn't nice.

00:14:24.000 He's a comedian.

00:14:24.840 It's different.

00:14:26.240 I think he should stay in that lane.

00:14:28.060 His job is to make us laugh.

00:14:30.240 For him to revise history, revise his own history,

00:14:33.280 and say that the whole thing was actually an ironic postmodern exercise in anti-racism,

00:14:39.320 yeah, that's the biggest joke of all.

00:14:41.720 Now, I'm not going to claim that everything I've done has been for a higher purpose.

00:14:45.900 Yes, some of my comedy, okay, probably half my comedy has been absolutely juvenile.

00:14:51.140 And the other half completely puerile.

00:14:55.320 But I admit there was nothing particularly enlightening about me as Borat from Kazakhstan,

00:15:02.480 the first fake news journalist,

00:15:04.440 running through a conference of mortgage brokers while I was completely naked.

00:15:10.020 Well, that's the thing.

00:15:11.280 No one cares what a comedian wrote as his thesis.

00:15:15.220 That's not why he's famous.

00:15:16.880 That's not why people are listening to him.

00:15:19.500 That's not why he's speaking at a $100 million a year censorship lobby group.

00:15:23.660 It's because of Borat that he's there.

00:15:26.060 Not because of some college essay he wrote.

00:15:28.160 He's good at writing jokes,

00:15:30.320 but I'm not sure if he's good at thinking about our foundational freedoms.

00:15:34.260 Listen to this.

00:15:35.160 It's as if the age of reason, the era of evidential argument, is ending.

00:15:41.740 And now knowledge is increasingly delegitimized,

00:15:45.060 and scientific consensus is dismissed.

00:15:48.360 Democracy, which depends on shared truths, is in retreat.

00:15:53.060 And autocracy, which depends on shared lies, is on the march.

00:15:58.640 Hate crimes are surging as on murderous attacks on religious and ethnic minorities.

00:16:04.280 What does he mean, scientific consensus is dismissed?

00:16:07.400 I can't imagine he means anything else other than global warming.

00:16:11.760 What else could he be referring to?

00:16:13.020 And is he saying that's how we should determine science,

00:16:16.800 by a vote, by a consensus,

00:16:18.800 and that we have to obediently accept an official narrative?

00:16:22.820 We can't question it.

00:16:23.800 And what does he mean by murderous attacks on religious and ethnic minorities?

00:16:29.140 Are there anti-Muslim terrorist groups that are sweeping the world?

00:16:33.320 Is there like a Christian or a Jewish version of ISIS out there?

00:16:37.320 I haven't heard of any.

00:16:38.420 I do not dispute that there are occasional anti-Muslim hate crimes committed in the West even.

00:16:43.940 But by far, the rise of hate crimes across the West is against Jews.

00:16:48.800 And by far, it is committed by, I'm sorry to say this, Muslim immigrants to the West. 1.00

00:16:53.960 The proportion of anti-Jewish hate crimes is very large, but in absolute numbers.

00:16:59.720 The number of victims of actual murders and terrorism based on religion,

00:17:05.280 I've got to think that's Christians at the hands of Muslims in the Middle East, 1.00

00:17:08.880 in Egypt, in Syria, in Iraq.

00:17:11.000 ISIS practically exterminated Christians in Iraq.

00:17:14.340 There was a genocide there, perpetrated by ISIS and continued by others to this day.

00:17:20.140 Why won't Borat there acknowledge that?

00:17:22.880 The stereotype he used in Borat and the Saddam Hussein general in the show The Dictator,

00:17:30.460 those are actually quite real characters in real life.

00:17:33.220 The vast majority of people in countries like Egypt and Syria believe in anti-Semitism.

00:17:38.580 They actually are anti-Semitic.

00:17:40.080 Many governments in the Muslim world are officially anti-Semitic, proudly, lawfully anti-Semitic in their own countries. 0.98

00:17:47.420 Why won't Borat, who is brave enough to, you know, he wasn't brave enough to take on those people.

00:17:55.500 He's brave enough to take on the West and Stephen Miller.

00:17:58.700 Why won't he say that about Muslim countries?

00:18:02.240 And what is his solution?

00:18:03.420 More jokes, more debates, more information.

00:18:08.480 No, he actually wants to silence the voices he doesn't like.

00:18:11.460 Now, what do all these dangerous trends have in common?

00:18:15.140 I'm just a comedian and an actor.

00:18:16.880 I'm not a scholar.

00:18:17.720 But one thing is pretty clear to me.

00:18:21.780 All this hate and violence is being facilitated by a handful of Internet companies

00:18:27.000 that amount to the greatest propaganda machine in history.

00:18:36.000 The greatest propaganda machine in history.

00:18:38.980 Let's think about it.

00:18:39.720 Facebook, YouTube, and Google, Twitter, and others.

00:18:43.180 They reach billions of people.

00:18:45.380 The algorithms these platforms depend on deliberately amplify the type of content that keeps users engaged.

00:18:52.900 Stories that appeal to our baser instincts and that trigger outrage and fear.

00:18:59.020 Yeah, the same YouTube and Facebook and Twitter that make him famous, that make him a star.

00:19:06.280 He wants that for himself, but not for his political enemies.

00:19:09.720 And suddenly the crudest man in showbiz is suddenly very concerned about baser instincts.

00:19:15.160 But he actually doesn't want us as people to address our baser instincts.

00:19:19.660 He's not trying to lift us up.

00:19:21.000 He wants a handful of companies to be our nannies, our governesses, 0.96

00:19:25.280 to put their hands over our ears or our mouths.

00:19:28.540 So we won't hear things that inflame us.

00:19:30.480 He doesn't want us to be better.

00:19:32.080 He has no hope for us.

00:19:33.500 He just doesn't want to improve people.

00:19:36.460 His whole career was actually built on base instincts.

00:19:39.180 He doesn't plan to stop telling dirty jokes himself, I don't think.

00:19:42.020 He just wants those same Internet tycoons to be the decision makers for you.

00:19:46.320 He's for censorship.

00:19:48.020 Not for him, mind you.

00:19:49.120 It's why YouTube recommended videos by the conspiracist Alex Jones billions of times.

00:19:57.300 It's why fake news outperforms real news, because studies show that lies spread faster than truth.

00:20:04.740 And it's no surprise that the greatest propaganda machine in history has spread the oldest conspiracy

00:20:10.360 theory in history, the lie that Jews are somehow dangerous.

00:20:15.020 Yeah, that Alex Jones, imagine someone saying that Jeffrey Epstein ran a child rape cartel with powerful

00:20:22.780 political people like Prince Andrew.

00:20:25.800 That conspiracy theorist ought to be shut down. 0.99

00:20:29.400 Look, I don't agree with everything Alex Jones says.

00:20:31.940 Some of it is conspiracy theory.

00:20:33.540 Some of it is conspiracy fact.

00:20:35.720 Nothing like the conspiracy theory, the Russian collusion conspiracy theory that the New York

00:20:42.100 Times and the Washington Post championed for two years that was finally debunked by a Democrat

00:20:47.520 lawyer named Robert Mueller.

00:20:49.520 But imagine thinking that a conspiracy theory could actually be squelched by censorship.

00:20:56.320 I think it's sort of the opposite.

00:20:57.380 Censorship makes people more curious about what was being hidden from them.

00:21:03.100 And doesn't it actually prove Alex Jones right about an international cabal of elites telling

00:21:08.660 you what you can and can't hear?

00:21:10.920 Infowars is the name of Jones' channel.

00:21:13.360 How does anything in this speech by Sacha Baron Cohen actually counter his thesis?

00:21:18.660 Doesn't it prove Jones' motto, there's a war on for your mind?

00:21:22.820 On the internet, everything can appear equally legitimate.

00:21:28.640 Breitbart resembles the BBC.

00:21:31.000 The fictitious protocols of the Elders of Zion look as valid as an ADL report.

00:21:36.820 And the rantings of a lunatic seem as credible as the findings of a Nobel Prize winner.

00:21:42.700 We have lost, it seems, a shared sense of basic facts upon which democracy depends.

00:21:49.220 Yeah, well, factually speaking, I think Breitbart is more accurate than the BBC.

00:21:53.920 The BBC is a state broadcaster.

00:21:56.120 It's a propaganda organ.

00:21:57.120 Breitbart is a contrary point of view.

00:21:59.320 I think he's suggesting we ban one and promote the other.

00:22:02.760 But who is he to decide which one?

00:22:04.440 Isn't the fact that many people seek alternative sources of information proof that the establishment

00:22:10.100 isn't serving the people and isn't giving people all the news, all the information?

00:22:14.300 And his plan isn't to fix what many perceive as the bias of the establishment is, but rather

00:22:19.880 to strengthen that bias and force people to consume biased news that they don't want.

00:22:25.000 When I, as the wannabe gangster Ali G, asked the astronaut Buzz Aldrin, what was it like

00:22:32.180 to walk on the sun, the joke worked because we, the audience, shared the same facts.

00:22:43.400 If you believe the moon landing was a hoax, the joke doesn't work.

00:22:48.580 When Borat got that bar in Arizona to agree that Jews control everybody's money and they 0.99

00:22:55.700 never give it back, the joke worked because the audience shared the fact that the depiction

00:23:02.460 of Jews as miserly is a conspiracy theory originating in the Middle Ages.

00:23:08.400 Well, actually, no.

00:23:10.240 For people born and raised and educated in the West with Western liberal values, that's

00:23:16.240 not sure.

00:23:17.240 But millions of migrants to the West from Muslim countries don't share those basic underlying

00:23:23.800 set of facts.

00:23:24.720 To them, Jews are evil. 0.96

00:23:27.560 They absolutely do control the world.

00:23:29.360 Do you recall that massive opinion poll of British Muslims conducted by the former head

00:23:33.580 of the UK Human Rights Commission?

00:23:35.000 I found that this survey found that, in fact, British Muslims don't share liberal values. 0.70

00:23:42.740 They want to ban gay teachers.

00:23:46.820 They say they wouldn't tell police if someone they knew was going to join ISIS.

00:23:51.140 They believe violence is acceptable to defend the prophet Mohammed's honor. 0.97

00:23:58.640 They believe Jews, in fact, do start all the wars and control all the political parties.

00:24:03.960 That's not a hunch or a guess.

00:24:05.500 That is an in-depth study of British Muslims.

00:24:08.060 I'm not focusing on Muslims in particular here, other than all the failings he's trying to 0.90

00:24:12.840 foist and blame on Middle America.

00:24:15.740 They're not actually the failings of Middle America.

00:24:19.380 All the bigotry he's worried about, it's not old stock Americans or Canadians. 0.62

00:24:24.920 His remedy, get tech companies to ban conservatives, that's not a solution to the real source of

00:24:31.460 the problem here.

00:24:32.100 He used to make jokes about Muslims.

00:24:34.320 Ali G, Borat, that dictator, they were all Muslims. 1.00

00:24:38.540 But he can't quite make himself say those things in his own straight man's voice, out of character.

00:24:45.040 But when, thanks to social media, conspiracies take hold, it is easier for hate groups to

00:24:51.420 recruit, easier for foreign intelligence agencies to interfere in our elections, and easier for

00:24:59.520 a country like Myanmar to commit genocide against the Rohingya.

00:25:04.220 So he's still on the Russian collusion thing.

00:25:06.800 Of course, the ADL is a Democratic Party operation, but Myanmar and the Rohingya Muslims? 1.00

00:25:12.960 It's odd to see Borat caring so much about Muslims all of a sudden.

00:25:16.840 Actually, the biggest persecutor of Muslims in the world, if you believe the media reports,

00:25:21.380 is China.

00:25:23.200 Reports, including the Wall Street Journal, say China has big labor camps of Uyghur Muslims

00:25:28.440 where they re-educate and punish Muslims.

00:25:31.200 I do believe that.

00:25:32.560 But that punishment, that brutality, is not being done by Facebook or Twitter.

00:25:36.980 Those companies are actually banned in China.

00:25:39.400 Facebook and Twitter don't cause bigotry.

00:25:42.900 In fact, they can be used to counter bigotry, to debate, to report alternative news that the

00:25:47.040 big news agencies won't do.

00:25:48.800 The reason I have a soft spot for Alex Jones is not that I agree with him on everything.

00:25:53.820 It's that he's a perpetual dissident.

00:25:56.040 Almost no matter what someone in the establishment says, Alex Jones and Infowars will say the opposite.

00:26:00.920 He's dead on with things like Epstein.

00:26:04.260 He's wrong, in my view, with his 9-11 conspiracy theories, for example.

00:26:09.260 I don't know about most of his ideas because I don't spend a lot of time watching him, but

00:26:14.200 I like the idea of a perpetual, high-energy, entertaining dissenter who will skewer the establishment

00:26:21.060 24-7 because they deserve it.

00:26:23.140 That's sort of what a comedian does, too.

00:26:25.480 And Alex Jones has a great sense of humor sometimes.

00:26:28.440 He jokes around.

00:26:29.680 I'm going to see if I can swivel the hip.

00:26:31.060 Full power.

00:26:31.800 I like that.

00:26:32.980 Yeah.

00:26:33.260 Let's do it again right now.

00:26:33.940 You know what I was doing?

00:26:35.080 Come on, let's do it real in there. 0.97

00:26:36.120 Okay.

00:26:36.920 I'm going to give you just the big one.

00:26:39.180 Ow! 1.00

00:26:39.580 Yeah, why does Borat get to make jokes but not Alex Jones or Gavin McInnes?

00:26:44.740 Why can't we have someone skewer the establishment, even if they get it wrong much of the time

00:26:49.560 or even most of the time?

00:26:50.600 Why do comedians like Sarah Silverman and Sacha Baron Cohen feel the need to bend the

00:26:56.960 knee to big corporations and big government now?

00:27:00.100 Is it only now that they're rich and they care about getting richer rather than being funny?

00:27:05.420 It's actually quite shocking how easy it is to turn conspiracy thinking into violence.

00:27:11.240 In my last show, Who Is America?, I found an educated, normal guy who had held down a

00:27:16.500 good job but who, on social media, repeated many of the conspiracy theories that President

00:27:23.140 Trump using Twitter has spread more than 1,700 times to his 67 million Twitter followers.

00:27:30.620 The president even tweeted that he was considering designating Antifa, who are anti-fascists,

00:27:38.200 who march against the far right, as a terror organization.

00:27:42.720 Whoa, is that what Antifa is?

00:27:45.620 You know what Antifa are.

00:27:46.660 They're these masked thugs who are violent, especially in America and Western Europe.

00:27:51.620 They attack people, students, the elderly, journalists, whomever.

00:27:55.200 They're a gang.

00:27:56.760 Sacha Baron Cohen is pumping out disinformation himself here.

00:28:00.920 He's whitewashing a true hate group, Antifa, and he's claiming that Trump is a liar?

00:28:07.320 Okay, fine, but he didn't particularize any of the lies.

00:28:10.920 Why bother?

00:28:11.480 He's speaking at a Democratic Party organization called the ADL.

00:28:15.020 They all just know Trump is a liar, no need for proof.

00:28:18.040 And that would mean debating Trump, and that's harder than just trying to ban Trump from Facebook

00:28:25.080 or impeach him, isn't it?

00:28:26.200 So, disguised as an Israeli anti-terrorism expert, Colonel Eran Morad, yalla, let's go.

00:28:38.280 Disguised as him, I told my interviewee that at the Women's March in San Francisco, Antifa

00:28:43.200 were plotting to put hormones into babies' diapers in order to make them transgender. 0.97

00:28:49.980 And this man believed it.

00:28:53.700 Yeah, that's hilarious.

00:28:55.340 Who would ever believe the lie that left-wing extremists are trying to make kids transgender?

00:29:01.320 I mean, what a conspiracy theory, eh?

00:29:04.540 Yeah, next thing you're going to tell me that courts are ordering kids to take hormones 1.00

00:29:10.320 to turn prepubescent boys into girls. 0.88

00:29:12.840 What are you, crazy?

00:29:13.760 What a conspiracy theory.

00:29:15.400 And I'm talking about this today because I believe that our pluralistic democracies are

00:29:21.140 on a precipice, and then the next 12 months and the role of social media could be determinant.

00:29:28.120 Now, British voters will go to the polls while online conspiracists promote the despicable

00:29:33.920 theory of the Great Replacement, that white Christians are being deliberately replaced by

00:29:40.020 Muslim immigrants.

00:29:41.400 Americans will vote for president while trolls and bots perpetuate the disgusting lie of a 1.00

00:29:49.400 Hispanic invasion. 0.94

00:29:51.680 Look, massive illegal immigration isn't a conspiracy theory.

00:29:54.880 It is a fact.

00:29:56.260 In the United Kingdom, in Canada, in the United States, in Canada at least, Justin Trudeau,

00:30:00.980 the Prime Minister, specifically ramped up Muslim immigration and specifically limited Christian

00:30:06.080 refugees.

00:30:06.640 That is not a conspiracy theory.

00:30:08.560 Here's Trudeau announcing how disgusting Stephen Harper was to allow special access for Christian 0.86

00:30:15.400 refugees from ISIS.

00:30:16.640 And to know that somewhere in the Prime Minister's office, staffers were pouring through their

00:30:24.700 personal files to try and see whether these families or find out which families would be suitable

00:30:32.800 for a photo op for the Prime Minister's re-election campaign, that's disgusting.

00:30:41.640 And Borat thinks that being a skeptic of the theory of man-made global warming is tantamount

00:30:47.620 to being a Holocaust denier or something.

00:30:50.200 And after years of YouTube videos calling climate change a hoax, the United States is on track a year

00:30:57.660 from now to formally withdraw from the Paris Accords.

00:31:02.520 A sewer of bigotry and vile conspiracy theories that threaten our democracy and to some degree

00:31:08.700 our planet.

00:31:10.740 This can't possibly be what the creators of the internet had in mind.

00:31:13.880 Yeah, stick to telling jokes, okay?

00:31:17.180 You're shouting a bit too much like one of your jokes, that dictator character telling

00:31:21.740 people what to think about global warming or immigration policy, telling people you want

00:31:26.340 to cut off their information choice in the run-up to an election.

00:31:29.360 It's not very British. 0.97

00:31:30.340 It's not very American or Canadian.

00:31:32.260 It's more of a Kazakhstan idea. 0.56

00:31:35.620 Cohen actually claims that Facebook, which bans conservatives already, is still too free-speechy.

00:31:40.900 First, Zuckerberg tried to portray this whole issue as choices around free expression.

00:31:48.460 That is ludicrous.

00:31:50.220 This is not about limiting anyone's free speech.

00:31:54.020 This is about giving people, including some of the most reprehensible people on Earth,

00:31:59.440 the biggest platform in history to reach a third of the planet.

00:32:03.160 What?

00:32:03.860 So he's calling for censorship, for people to be banned.

00:32:06.800 But he objects to being called a censor, and his only rebuttal is to say, that's ludicrous.

00:32:12.220 Yeah, no, you gave a whole speech in favor of censorship.

00:32:15.580 You want to force Facebook to de-platform people even more.

00:32:19.320 You're furious that they won't obey you.

00:32:21.860 You're a censor.

00:32:22.780 You're not even a censor because it's not your company.

00:32:24.500 You want to force other people to be a censor.

00:32:27.480 How low does that make you?

00:32:29.160 Freedom of speech is not freedom of reach.

00:32:32.940 What?

00:32:33.200 That's just a rhyme.

00:32:35.380 That doesn't mean anything.

00:32:37.040 Freedom of speech means you have the freedom to say something.

00:32:40.500 Other people have the freedom to choose to listen to it.

00:32:42.820 You can't say, if you can't say anything other than to yourself, that's not actually free speech, big guy.

00:32:49.120 Who is this idiot?

00:32:50.560 He's making Borat look smart.

00:32:52.620 Second, Mark Zuckerberg claimed that new limits on what's posted on social media would be to pull back on free expression.

00:33:01.700 This is utter nonsense.

00:33:03.680 The First Amendment says that, and I quote, Congress shall make no law, abridging freedom of speech.

00:33:10.440 However, this does not apply to private businesses like Facebook.

00:33:14.880 We're not asking these companies to determine the boundaries of free speech across society.

00:33:20.280 We just want them to be responsible on their platforms.

00:33:24.040 This is the closest thing to an argument that Sacha Baron Cohen makes, that the First Amendment in the United States doesn't apply to private companies.

00:33:31.460 He's a Brit, I'm a Canadian, so neither of us are really experts in the First Amendment.

00:33:35.300 But in fact, the First Amendment does apply to many private companies, which is why, for example, you see Moonies in public shopping centers or airports.

00:33:43.500 If a private company owns what's essentially a public square, the First Amendment can apply to them.

00:33:49.600 But the First Amendment is not the only law that applies, so does human rights law, for example.

00:33:53.900 In fact, what Sacha Baron Cohen is really asking for is that Internet companies, well, I think, that they should be free to discriminate based on political beliefs.

00:34:02.960 If he got his way, what would stop Internet companies from banning his political beliefs?

00:34:09.780 He's a bit of a coward.

00:34:11.660 He never mentions China in his speech, not once.

00:34:14.860 Like most people in Hollywood, he's too concerned about selling movie tickets there.

00:34:18.600 He'll never criticize them.

00:34:19.740 Like the NBA, maybe he'll get an endorsement there.

00:34:22.000 But what if, let's say, one of the world's largest tech companies, Huawei, a Chinese company which is building much of the world's 5G telecom networks,

00:34:30.160 and they're set to do so in Canada, too, what if Huawei just, I don't know, decided to ban Uyghur Muslims in China from talking on their phones

00:34:39.580 or the Rohingya Muslims in Burma that Sacha Baron Cohen suddenly cares so much about?

00:34:44.560 What if Huawei wanted to ban comedians that they don't like or liberals or conservatives or more likely Hong Kong democracy activists?

00:34:54.320 Cohen is saying companies should be able to discriminate however they like because they're private companies.

00:35:00.160 Is that really a good thing for a Jewish comedian to argue for? 1.00

00:35:04.040 Now, third, Mark Zuckerberg seemed to equate regulation of companies like his to the actions of the most repressive societies.

00:35:14.360 Incredible.

00:35:15.600 This from one of the six people who decide what information so much of the world sees.

00:35:22.260 Zuckerberg at Facebook, Sundar Pichai at Google, at its parent company, Alphabet, Larry Page and Sergey Brin,

00:35:31.640 Brin's ex-sister-in-law, Susan Wojcicki at YouTube, and Jack Dorsey at Twitter.

00:35:37.680 The Silicon Six.

00:35:40.120 All billionaires, all Americans, who care more about boosting their share price than about protecting democracy.

00:35:47.960 This, this is ideological imperialism.

00:35:57.280 Six unelected individuals in Silicon Valley imposing their vision on the rest of the world,

00:36:04.000 unaccountable to any government, and acting like they're above the reach of law.

00:36:09.180 Cohen keeps putting the free speech argument and then just saying, that's ridiculous, that's ludicrous, that's incredible,

00:36:17.200 without actually refuting the free speech argument.

00:36:19.680 How could he?

00:36:20.540 His big movie ticket market, China, absolutely does throttle the internet, just like he's proposing for America and the UK.

00:36:28.860 So does North Korea.

00:36:29.880 Iran just shut down the entire internet this month to squelch an uprising.

00:36:33.640 Again, this guy just made the case that there are half a dozen powerful internet barons, and that's dangerous, he's saying.

00:36:41.480 They have too much control, he's saying.

00:36:44.120 But then he wants to give them more power to censor enemies?

00:36:47.720 Pick a lane, buddy.

00:36:49.940 Are Zuckerberg and friends, are they a dangerous elite who can't be trusted?

00:36:55.820 Or do you actually want to trust them to decide every video, every joke said on the internet?

00:37:00.760 Man, Sacha Baron Cohen's speech was so long and so wrong, I don't have the time to go through the whole thing.

00:37:07.980 But here's the ultimate proof that Sacha Baron Cohen is simply a man of the establishment now,

00:37:12.800 not a word in his speech against Hollywood, not a word in his speech against China.

00:37:18.600 That's because that's where his money comes from.

00:37:20.600 But take a look at this.

00:37:21.440 Take, now take the issue of political ads, on which Facebook have been resolute.

00:37:27.860 Fortunately, Twitter finally banned them.

00:37:30.900 And Google, today I read, is making changes too.

00:37:34.440 But if you pay them, Facebook will run any political ad you want, even if it's a lie.

00:37:41.800 Who needs political ads? 0.99

00:37:44.140 Well, not the powerful, not the establishment, not someone who is already a president, a tyrant.

00:37:49.140 Vladimir Putin does not need political ads anymore.

00:37:52.220 He simply gives a speech and all the state broadcasters repeat it.

00:37:57.280 Political ads are for upstarts, for dissidents, for people who need to buy marketing because they're not already powerful.

00:38:03.260 Sacha Baron Cohen is very pleased that they have been silenced now.

00:38:07.200 He's for the established order.

00:38:08.420 He wasn't when he was starting out as an edgy comedian, but he's made it now, just like Sarah Silverman.

00:38:14.480 He's the establishment now, so like Silverman, he's shutting the door for anyone who follows him.

00:38:21.040 What a virtue signaler.

00:38:23.340 From the man who gave us the running of the Jews. 1.00

00:38:26.860 I haven't actually seen him fight injustice in real life, because that's hard, you know.

00:38:32.840 He really seems to have a bee in his bonnet about Myanmar and the Rohingya Muslims.

00:38:36.900 I'd be willing to bet he can't even find Myanmar on a map. 0.99

00:38:41.760 It's just some cool thing he heard about.

00:38:43.860 Get this.

00:38:44.680 Maybe it's time to tell Mark Zuckerberg and the CEOs of these companies,

00:38:51.460 you already allowed one foreign power to interfere in our elections.

00:38:56.520 You already facilitated one genocide in Myanmar.

00:39:00.920 Do it again, and you go to jail.

00:39:03.140 In the end, it all comes down to what kind of world we want.

00:39:15.040 Yeah, that's right.

00:39:15.920 Do you think you solve problems in Myanmar by taxing and regulating the internet?

00:39:20.060 Or by solving the problem in Myanmar.

00:39:23.100 There was no internet when the Rwanda massacres happened, when the Holocaust happened.

00:39:29.800 Cohen says Hitler would have used the internet.

00:39:31.560 Well, I'm sure he would have, just like he was literally published in the New York Times.

00:39:36.040 The problem isn't the medium.

00:39:38.920 The problem is the problem.

00:39:40.260 It's not the messenger.

00:39:41.100 Why doesn't Cohen actually do something for the Rohingya? 0.99

00:39:45.360 I'm just kidding.

00:39:46.020 He doesn't really care about them.

00:39:47.860 Let me close with Cohen's last line that shows you what this is really about.

00:39:51.140 If we make that our aim, if we prioritise truth over lies, tolerance over prejudice,

00:39:59.180 empathy over indifference, and experts over ignoramuses,

00:40:04.560 then maybe, just maybe, we can stop the greatest propaganda machine in history.

00:40:12.400 We can save democracy.

00:40:13.900 We can still have a place for free speech and free expression.

00:40:19.300 And most importantly, my jokes will still work.

00:40:23.200 Thank you very much.

00:40:25.000 Yeah, no, your jokes won't work under your proposed new rules.

00:40:29.100 But that's fine.

00:40:30.400 You already got paid.

00:40:31.080 You're already a gazillionaire.

00:40:32.680 But your goals, tolerance over prejudice, empathy over indifference,

00:40:37.580 experts over ignoramuses, those are great goals.

00:40:40.520 But they're not greater than the fundamental freedom of speech.

00:40:45.620 Empathy over indifference?

00:40:47.000 Yeah, great.

00:40:48.100 It's something for you to work on in your own personal life as a man.

00:40:51.660 It's not for governments to tell citizens what to do.

00:40:54.380 Experts over ignoramuses?

00:40:55.920 Yeah, hey, good idea.

00:40:57.260 Trouble is, each of us have a different idea of who an expert is.

00:41:00.440 I'm not going to rely on a comedian who wrote some paper in college once

00:41:04.160 to teach me about freedom.

00:41:06.900 Sacha Baron Cohen attacked Trump over and over in his speech,

00:41:09.940 but not China, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, Cuba, or places like that.

00:41:13.820 He mentions Muslims, but only as victims, never as terrorists or haters.

00:41:19.560 His speech isn't serious.

00:41:20.860 It was delivered at a Democrat-controlled organization.

00:41:23.580 But even now, it wasn't what it was about.

00:41:26.560 Every one of the tech companies he blasted is overwhelmingly Democrat in its politics.

00:41:30.840 They're all based in San Francisco.

00:41:31.940 This speech wasn't about anything except one thing.

00:41:35.980 About the dirtiest comedian of our era trying to whitewash himself.

00:41:41.080 Yeah, I know.

00:41:42.600 That would be like Howard Stern suddenly saying he's a feminist now, 0.59

00:41:45.560 and he's really, really against the objectification of women.

00:41:49.420 No more joking about girls.

00:41:52.080 Sure, buddy.

00:41:53.660 Do us all a favor.

00:41:55.780 Just stick to being funny.

00:41:57.060 So, the current carbon price is rising to $50 per tonne by 2022.

00:42:14.220 We then continue it at $20 per tonne per year up to 2030.

00:42:20.700 So, gasoline becomes $0.40 more expensive by 2030 than it is today.

00:42:27.580 Well, that's Chris Regan, the head of something called the Ecofiscal Commission.

00:42:32.160 Now, the thing about the word Ecofiscal Commission is it sounds pretty official,

00:42:37.160 sort of like Federal Express,

00:42:40.400 which was deliberately chosen to make it sound official like the post office.

00:42:44.380 No, Federal Express is just a private company.

00:42:46.780 The Ecofiscal Commission is a private lobby group with many liberal ties.

00:42:51.780 I must say, in all fairness, though,

00:42:54.140 they had Preston Manning on their advisory board in its early years

00:42:57.840 to sort of infiltrate the right.

00:43:00.760 That was when the right was toying with carbon taxes

00:43:03.540 until Rob Ford and belatedly Andrew Scheer pulled the plug on that movement.

00:43:09.880 Well, the Ecofiscal Commission is back, as you can see,

00:43:13.060 saying and waiting until after the election to say it.

00:43:15.980 Well, guess what, guys?

00:43:17.660 We might have to double, triple, maybe even quadruple the carbon tax.

00:43:24.020 And here to talk about it is one of our friends who's written a column about this.

00:43:27.260 I'm talking about Andrew Lawton with TNC News.

00:43:29.540 His article, the headline is,

00:43:32.180 Liberal Connected Environmental Group Wants to Quadruple Carbon Tax.

00:43:36.900 Andrew, how you doing?

00:43:38.500 Hey, good to be with you, Ezra.

00:43:39.760 I'm well. How about yourself?

00:43:40.720 Good. It's nice to see you.

00:43:42.000 You are a real carbon tax expert.

00:43:44.220 You attended the court challenge in Ontario to the carbon tax.

00:43:49.420 And it doesn't surprise me that you're all over this.

00:43:52.500 First of all, did I accurately describe the Ecofiscal Commission?

00:43:56.360 Sounds very official, but it's basically a lobby group.

00:44:00.020 Would you say that's accurate?

00:44:02.200 Yes and no.

00:44:03.340 I think that it's accurate that this is a private group,

00:44:06.300 but I don't think it's accurate to say that it doesn't have government influence

00:44:10.080 because the Ecofiscal Commission reports have been heavily cited by governments.

00:44:15.580 And in fact, during the carbon tax trial in Ontario,

00:44:18.920 it was not infrequently that the Ecofiscal Commission's findings

00:44:22.400 were cited as evidence of government needing to do certain things.

00:44:26.760 So it seems like they have been granted the air of state legitimacy,

00:44:30.860 even though that isn't what the organization actually deserves.

00:44:35.000 Huh. That's a very good point.

00:44:36.380 I think they are successful.

00:44:38.760 I mean, choosing that name, Ecofiscal Commission,

00:44:41.440 I mean, everyone's heard of a commission, you know.

00:44:43.720 Well, and sorry to interrupt,

00:44:44.800 but the official name is Canada's Ecofiscal Commission.

00:44:48.240 So the branding of it is they're laying ownership of Canada,

00:44:52.700 Canada's Ecofiscal Commission,

00:44:54.740 to such an extent that anyone would assume they do have the backing of government.

00:44:58.880 Yeah, I mean, you know, a commissioner is often a public office.

00:45:03.500 You know, the commish.

00:45:04.680 Oh, here's the commissioner, whether it's an election commissioner or a police commissioner.

00:45:09.420 A commissioner is almost like saying judge.

00:45:13.680 That would almost be like saying Canada's environmental judge.

00:45:18.160 I think that they're very tricky, and that's why they're effective.

00:45:22.140 As you say, they're cited in court.

00:45:25.100 Thank you for that information.

00:45:26.560 I didn't know that.

00:45:27.860 But now I see in your article, and I see reported elsewhere,

00:45:32.900 the Ecofiscal Commission, we saw a little clip of them a moment ago.

00:45:36.740 They waited until after the election is over.

00:45:39.260 Now they're saying, okay, suckers, we've got to jack up the carbon tax now.

00:45:43.780 Yeah, and it's quite unfortunate for many reasons.

00:45:46.960 I mean, economically, Canada can barely weather the carbon tax that's on the books now,

00:45:51.620 which is supposed to go up to $50.

00:45:54.540 So it's not actually at its maximum level yet.

00:45:57.560 And what the Ecofiscal Commission is pushing for is an increase to a $210 a ton carbon tax in 11 years.

00:46:05.160 So that would be more than quadrupling from its current level, but quadrupling from the maximum level,

00:46:11.900 which isn't supposed to kick in for another two years, which is just such a monumental increase.

00:46:17.180 And we're already seeing declining fortunes in the oil and gas sector, mining, forestry.

00:46:23.580 We haven't yet seen the spinoff effects of this in adjacent industries, like retail and shipping and even grocery, for example,

00:46:32.320 and agriculture, where there has to be a payment of the carbon tax because these industries rely on shipping.

00:46:39.180 That impact isn't going to become apparent until down the road.

00:46:42.480 So you're right. The fact that all of a sudden these groups are coming out of the woodwork saying,

00:46:47.120 oh, you know, that carbon tax Canada has isn't going to be enough to meet the Paris Accord targets and the government's targets.

00:46:53.780 Well, this was presented to Canadians as being the silver bullet in the climate fight,

00:46:58.460 that we need to put this price on greenhouse gas emissions, and this is going to get us to Paris.

00:47:03.420 And now all of these groups, including the International Monetary Fund, the Ecofiscal Commission,

00:47:08.780 I believe Canada 2020 as well, even a report from the Canadian bureaucracy are saying that Justin Trudeau's carbon tax doesn't go far enough.

00:47:17.140 This was a way to get the foot in the door, and now all of these groups are going to give the government cover to increase the carbon tax.

00:47:24.260 Yeah. You know, I remember when the Energy East pipeline was killed.

00:47:31.200 That was a $15 billion pipeline project would have created more jobs than there are unemployed people in Atlantic Canada.

00:47:41.680 It's just a huge, huge project.

00:47:43.820 It was killed because the government changed the rules halfway.

00:47:47.020 They said, you now have to take into account global warming emissions from the oil in the pipeline, not just the pipeline itself.

00:47:56.940 And Energy said, oh, this is ridiculous. We're out of it.

00:48:00.620 And the reason I mentioned that, you might be saying, well, what's the connection,

00:48:05.300 is they didn't bring in the same global warming analysis for imports from Saudi tankers.

00:48:14.440 So I'm sorry if I'm taking a while to make my point here, Andrew,

00:48:18.360 but it's they decided to add this new restriction to Canadian oil pipelines.

00:48:24.740 We're now making you accountable for the GHG emissions of what's in the pipe.

00:48:29.920 But they were exempting Saudi and American oil imports that come from Saudi ships or American rail cars.

00:48:37.760 And here's my point as applicable here.

00:48:40.360 Imagine you're a farmer in Saskatchewan.

00:48:42.860 Imagine you're an automaker in Ontario.

00:48:47.700 And you've now got to pay $210 per puff of CO2 or whatever it works out to.

00:48:55.420 But our number one export market, our number one competitor, the United States, does not.

00:49:03.340 So a car made in Detroit or Ohio doesn't have to pay this.

00:49:06.940 Farmers in Nebraska don't have to pay this on their diesel fuel for their combines.

00:49:15.940 It's insane that we would do this to ourselves while America is going the opposite direction.

00:49:22.220 Donald Trump has formally served notice to withdraw America from the Paris global warming scheme.

00:49:28.060 This just seems like a pointless declaration of war against Canadian business.

00:49:34.720 Well, it is.

00:49:35.700 And we know that the government in the previous parliament had those two bills that were specifically targeting the oil and gas sector.

00:49:43.160 And I think that there's a lot of value in saying that any hope Justin Trudeau has at mending things with the West requires those bills to be repealed.

00:49:52.400 The problem with the carbon tax is that it just it has the guise of targeting polluters and targeting big companies that are, you know, spewing toxic fumes and chemicals into the atmosphere.

00:50:04.560 But the reality is the carbon tax hit everyone.

00:50:07.960 It hits families and it's small business.

00:50:09.960 It hits anyone that needs to buy something that they didn't grow in their own backyard.

00:50:14.520 You know, you can't even buy your organic free range kale without paying a carbon tax because that kale came from somewhere and it had to be shipped.

00:50:23.640 And unless we have a fleet of Tesla trucks, which it sounds like we're not heading anywhere close to with how that announcement went by Tesla last week, it's not possible to ship anything without greenhouse gas emissions or what the government is characterizing as greenhouse gas emissions.

00:50:40.460 So we're in a very dangerous territory here, Ezra, because there is this double standard.

00:50:45.120 You're right, where it only seems to be domestic product that is harmed, which is at odds with the Canadian economy's needs, at odds with the Canadian consumers' needs and at odds with environmental science.

00:50:58.240 And that's why this whole thing is such a mess.

00:51:01.320 And to go back to the Ecofiscal Commission, I know you took aim at the word commission.

00:51:05.800 I take aim at the word fiscal in a lot of sense because this gives it the sense that there is fiscal legitimacy.

00:51:12.100 When in actuality, if you hear the comments being made by the commission's spokespeople, they're unabashedly desiring a carbon tax.

00:51:20.400 And we know that the math just doesn't add up on these economic.

00:51:23.620 Yeah, I just, you know, we're so integrated with the United States that will continue with the ratification of the revised NAFTA.

00:51:32.760 I just don't even understand how, well, it's a group of professors and a group of lobbyists.

00:51:37.280 That's how it makes sense.

00:51:38.200 But here's the other thing.

00:51:39.600 You're talking about how this is going to be paid by everybody.

00:51:42.800 That's true.

00:51:43.500 At the end of the day, we'll all pay for it.

00:51:45.660 Some industries will be hit harder, agriculture, oil and gas.

00:51:49.580 But I am sure that there will be political exemptions for favored industries, especially in Quebec and probably in Ontario where there are at least liberal MPs.

00:51:59.960 And I point out, for example, there was a recent approval of a massive cement factory in Quebec.

00:52:09.720 Cement is one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases.

00:52:13.120 Now, I'm not a carbon worrier.

00:52:15.380 I understand that carbon is the stuff of life.

00:52:17.480 It's plant food.

00:52:18.740 And I don't believe that we're in a crisis.

00:52:22.020 But for those who do, cement plants are some of the biggest emitters around next to maybe coal-fired power plants.

00:52:30.080 The new cement plant in Quebec was exempted from a carbon analysis in a way that a oil sands facility would not.

00:52:41.640 So I think, Andrew, that if you had the quadrupling of carbon taxes as this fiscal commission wants, it would not hit everyone equally.

00:52:53.740 There would be huge exemptions in Quebec because that's what Justin Trudeau cares about and the greater Toronto area because that's what Justin Trudeau cares about.

00:53:01.840 Well, it is an interesting point you raise because we heard when the SNC-Lavalin affair broke that when Justin Trudeau finally sort of figured out how he was going to defend himself, his line was that he's never going to apologize for standing up for jobs.

00:53:17.580 And we've seen time and time again that he cares a lot more about Quebec SNC-Lavalin jobs than jobs of oil patch workers, jobs of southern Ontario farmers, jobs of people in all these other areas.

00:53:29.700 So there very much is a double standard in which jobs the government decides it's going to go to the rails for.

00:53:36.200 Yeah. Well, let me ask you this.

00:53:38.740 It's obvious to me that this Canada's Equal Fiscal Commission is a stalking horse, that they're out there to try and move what's called the Overton Window, which is what's the realm of the discussable.

00:53:51.200 It's insane to quadruple the carbon tax.

00:53:53.780 So this Chris Regan, this professor, this paid lobbyist, says the insane thing because he's not on the ballot.

00:54:01.460 He doesn't have to worry about turning out voters.

00:54:04.300 And then Justin Trudeau comes in and says, whoa, we're not that radical.

00:54:09.080 We'll just go halfway there.

00:54:11.560 So no, no, no.

00:54:12.520 Some people who happen to be my best friends say quadruple the carbon tax.

00:54:17.540 No, we'll just double it because we're reasonable.

00:54:21.560 That's what I think is going on here.

00:54:23.020 They're a stalking horse to move the Overton Window to be the insane people so Trudeau can split the difference.

00:54:30.000 Yeah, death by a thousand compromises is how that looks to me.

00:54:34.740 Well, listen, I want to ask you one last question.

00:54:37.740 Do you think that this will happen before the next federal election?

00:54:43.800 I'm going to say that this minority government lasts two years.

00:54:46.660 That's my prediction.

00:54:47.320 Do you think that in the next two years, Justin Trudeau will jack up the carbon tax by double, triple, quadruple as proposed here?

00:54:55.200 I would say no.

00:54:57.540 And the reason why is because the government has built in a bit of cover here because the carbon tax as it is, is not going to reach its full potential until I believe 2022.

00:55:07.860 So that gives the government some time.

00:55:10.620 If the election is before that cutoff period happens, the government doesn't need to do anything else.

00:55:16.520 But after that point, if the liberals win again, all of a sudden, no, you know what?

00:55:20.540 You know, the world's changed.

00:55:21.880 We need to do more time to up things.

00:55:24.840 But I think that they're going to stick with the timeline they put forward.

00:55:28.080 My big fear is what happens after that.

00:55:30.320 Yeah, well, you're right.

00:55:31.640 If the liberals were to win yet again, frankly, you couldn't blame them for saying, well, Canadians knew what they were getting.

00:55:37.780 I hope that doesn't happen.

00:55:38.920 Andrew, it's great to see you.

00:55:40.360 Of course, our viewers know you not just as a great journalist in your own right at TNC.news,

00:55:45.720 but one of our co-plaintiffs in busting down the censorship of the English language, or the Debates Commission in the last election.

00:55:53.980 So congratulations also on that great win.

00:55:56.080 Thank you.

00:55:56.700 All right.

00:55:57.140 There you have it.

00:55:57.440 Take care, my friend.

00:55:58.720 You too.

00:55:59.020 There you have it.

00:55:59.960 Andrew Lawton from TNC.news.

00:56:02.480 Stay with us more ahead.

00:56:11.920 Hey, welcome back.

00:56:12.800 On my monologue yesterday, Richard writes,

00:56:15.220 This Turkey incident shows precedent. 0.58

00:56:17.460 We need to prosecute these anarchists and hurt them in the pocketbook.

00:56:21.420 Well, yeah, not just the four low-level people who were charged.

00:56:26.660 There were 60 people involved, and I'm not even interested in the college kids or whatever.

00:56:31.700 One of them was a minor.

00:56:33.080 How about the organizers?

00:56:34.120 How about the fundraisers?

00:56:36.140 Peter writes, I have dealt with the Hutterites for many years. 1.00

00:56:39.960 They are amazingly generous people.

00:56:41.320 I have the utmost respect for them.

00:56:44.080 Well, me too.

00:56:44.740 I don't actually know any Hutterites.

00:56:46.600 I mean, I know of them, and I'm a fan from afar.

00:56:51.640 I think they were chosen precisely because they turned the other cheek, precisely because

00:56:56.220 they're pacifists.

00:56:57.560 They were picked on because these eco-bullies knew they wouldn't fight back.

00:57:02.860 Bernard writes,

00:57:04.060 I'm still very angry that there were only a few people charged by the RCMP.

00:57:07.440 Why no more arrests?

00:57:08.700 Why did the RCMP negotiate with these criminals to let them off and let them steal five turkeys?

00:57:13.480 Yeah, that's the worst part of it all.

00:57:15.940 It would be like if the RCMP arrived at a bank robbery and said,

00:57:19.720 all right, guys, we're going to negotiate.

00:57:21.320 You want $100,000.

00:57:22.940 You want zero. 0.94

00:57:24.000 Let's split the difference of $50,000, and you can walk out of here scot-free.

00:57:27.300 I know the stakes are higher, five turkeys versus $50,000.

00:57:32.020 But are the principles not the same?

00:57:34.420 I'm very mad about how this thing is going, and I think the province of Alberta has a

00:57:38.120 lot of answering to do for why they haven't put more charges, and the RCMP has a lot of

00:57:42.280 answering to do.

00:57:42.740 I met a cop, an RCMP officer at the courthouse yesterday, and he said, oh, I follow you.

00:57:47.660 Yeah, I bet he does.

00:57:49.740 I wish he would follow the eco-radicals as closely as he follows my Twitter account.

00:57:55.380 That's our news for today.

00:57:57.100 Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, good night.

00:58:01.780 Keep fighting for freedom.

00:58:03.740 Bye.

00:58:04.740 Bye.

00:58:06.880 Bye.

00:58:06.960 Bye.

00:58:14.660 Bye.

00:58:15.820 Bye.

00:58:18.220 Bye.

00:58:18.560 Bye.

00:58:18.620 Bye.

00:58:21.920 Bye.

00:58:22.540 Bye.

00:58:22.660 Bye.

00:58:23.440 Bye.

00:58:24.200 Bye.

00:58:24.380 Bye.

00:58:25.040 Bye.

00:58:29.060 Bye.

00:58:30.100 Bye.

00:58:32.080 aldo.

Rebel News Podcast - November 29, 2019

World's dirtiest comedian wants Facebook to censor mean jokes

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