Keean Bextey reports on Omar Cotter’s Edmonton court appearance, where he smirked while refusing to show remorse for murdering U.S. soldier Christopher Speer and smirked about a $10.5M taxpayer settlement, with Crown prosecutors blocking bail changes amid fears of Islamophobia manipulation. Sheila Gunn Reid exposes UN COP24 hypocrisy in Poland—diesel generators powering delegates during a blizzard while pushing coal phase-outs—and the fortified Marrakesh Migration Conference, where anti-border rhetoric clashes with armed security. Ezra Levant mocks the UN’s failure to sway Poland on coal, ties taxpayer-funded migrant caravan security to conference costs, and critiques media credential denials for "impolite" questions, underscoring systemic contradictions between ideals and enforcement. [Automatically generated summary]
Welcome to Rebel Roundup, ladies and gentlemen, and the rest of you, in which we look back at some of the very best commentaries of the week by your favorite rebels.
I'm your host, David Menzies.
Well, yesterday, Omar Cotter, our homegrown Islamist terrorist, he was back in a courtroom, this time arguing for some of his bail conditions to be dropped.
Kian Beckste was also in that Edmonton courtroom, and he'll explain how it is that when it comes to sheer unmitigated gall, Omar Cotter has no equal.
And speaking of scumbags, Abdullahi Hashi Farah has many things.
He's a drug dealer.
He's a gun smuggler.
He's even a trafficker for pedophiles.
So naturally, he's just the sort of person we'd want as a future Canadian citizen, right?
Ezra Levant has all the unbelievable details.
And Sheila Gunreed has just returned from the UN's climate change conference in Poland.
And she'll explain why the UN slogan when it comes to climate change should really be, do as we say, not as we do.
And finally, we get your letters every minute of every day.
And I'll share some of the letters we received regarding my journey to Marrakesh to cover the UN's conference on migration.
My first observation, while the UN doesn't care very much for developed nations erecting walls and fences to protect their borders and citizens, this very same UN loves walls and fences when it comes to protecting its own conference venue.
At double standard much?
Those are your Rebels, now let's round them up.
So the day started with us running around the Edmonton Court Centre trying to find out which door Omar Khadr was going to choose to come into the building.
Turns out we were right.
We were the first to head him off and he came in the side door here where there's very little media, but we got to him and we asked him if he regretted killing Christopher Speer.
We asked him where his taxpayer-funded fortune was.
No answer, no answer at all.
We followed him in.
We went up the elevator with his convicted terrorist and he just stood there with a smile on his face.
We went into the courtroom and sat just right next to him actually.
When he sat there, we could see his socks.
They were very Trudeau-esque.
We couldn't get that on camera, of course, because we're not allowed cameras in the courtroom.
But what we left with was a verdict from the judge saying, well, it was actually a lack of a verdict saying she was going to push it back about a week until next Friday.
That's when we'll know whether or not Omar Cotter will get a Canadian passport to travel to Saudi Arabia.
Call me rash, call me foolhardy, call me spiteful even, but you think that if a convicted murderer regained his freedom after doing only 10 years in the slammer and then went on to receive a $10.5 million check, courtesy of the taxpayers, well, you think that murderer might feel as though he had just won the justice system sweepstakes, right?
Oh, but not when it comes to Canada's homegrown Islamist terrorist, Omar Cotter.
For you see, not so little Omar was in a Edmonton courtroom yesterday and he turned on the charm to get his various bail conditions lifted so that he can travel outside the country and speak to his terrorist-loving sister Zanab.
And get this, Omar actually called his bail conditions an injustice.
Yes, that's right.
He's the victim here.
But just try telling that to the family of Christopher Speer, the U.S. soldier Omar ruthlessly murdered.
Joining me now is our rebel reporter Kian Beckstey, who was in that Edmonton courtroom yesterday.
Welcome to Rebel Roundup, Kian.
Thanks for having me.
A pleasure.
Now, Kian, help me make sense of this latest Omar Cotter courtroom drama here.
Since Omar confessed to murder, and since he and his lawyers signed off on all of his various bail conditions, what in the world is his argument now in terms of trying to receive leniency?
Well, it's kind of weird because he doesn't really have an argument.
His argument is he's been such a nice guy, you know, feel bad for me.
I'm just some poor soul who got caught up in the justice system.
And he's sure to say how great the justice system is.
Of course, it awarded him $10.5 million at the end of the day.
Well, Justin Trudeau did at least.
He doesn't have an argument.
He's just going off a smile and a prayer.
You know, and the thing I think that greats Canadians so much about this case, Kian, in addition to the horrific act of murder he carried out on an Allied troop to Canada, and of course his ideology that he presumably might still subscribe to, it's the fact that all these years later and all these paychecks later, he has never, at least to my eyes and ears,
expressed any regret about what he did in his past.
You couldn't be more right about that.
I was outside the courtroom.
We were trying to head him off, figure out which door he was coming in, and we chose the smaller door, figuring he was going to go where the media weren't.
So we waited there and we talked to him.
We talked to him.
Well, at least we tried to.
We said, I asked him, Omar, do you regret killing Christopher Spear?
And he just looked, he just looked straight ahead, kept walking, totally ignored me.
I asked him if his money was offshore.
He wouldn't answer me again.
And then I followed him into the building, passed the security checks where they made sure he didn't have a grenade with him.
And then we went up the elevator, and he stood in the elevator and just smiled at me, knowing that I couldn't record him and ask him any questions in the courthouse.
He just smiled, smirked and grinned.
It just, oh, I can understand why Canadians are frustrated with him.
You know, Kian, that anecdote you just shared with me, and I didn't know that happened until just a few seconds ago of you in the elevator and him smiling and the smile being more of a sneer.
I think that is an incredible anecdote in terms of, I think what you saw was the real Omar Cotter.
You know, not the guy that goes to press conferences, you know, with the teary eyes and, you know, the whole act of contrition and, oh, woe is me, the victim.
But the fact that this is a guy who literally not only got away with murder, but got an eight-figure check from Canadians too.
And he must think we are the biggest suckers on the planet.
And you peeled back the onion skin and saw the real Omar in that elevator, I should think.
I sure think I did.
I think he has absolutely no remorse for what he does, what he did.
He killed Christopher Speer, but keep in mind he wounded many others.
And he took $10.5 million away from the taxpayers when we're in major debt and Justin Trudeau's deficit spending his way to the next election.
I think that we are going to be played as fools if we let Omar Cotter fly to Saudi Arabia.
Keep in mind, it's Saudi Arabia that he wants to go to to speak with his sister, who has not denounced al-Qaeda at all in any way whatsoever.
Why does he want to do that?
It just doesn't, it doesn't make any sense.
Oh, in fact, she openly mocks the West while, of course, taking all kinds of welfare from the West to maintain her lifestyle, which again is another insidious point.
But you're right.
Do we want this convicted murderer, self-confessed, going to a country that doesn't really have a good record when it comes to terrorism, cavorting with family members who are pro-terrorism as far as I can tell?
Surely this must be weighing in in terms of the judge's decision.
I know she's reserved her judgment, Kian, but surely these have to be the pertinent relevant points in terms of him being granted an exclusion from these bail conditions or not.
Well, I don't consider myself a lawyer by any stretch of the means, but from what I understand is that both the Alberta and Canadian Crown prosecutors were opposed to these amendments to his bail conditions, which is actually a really big thing because bail, how bail is set is very much dependent on what the prosecutors want.
So because the crown prosecutors from the federal government, which keep in mind, this whole thing was delayed a few months so that the federal prosecutor could get advice from the federal government on what to do.
So you know that Justin Trudeau explicitly decided to tell this crown prosecutor to not support Omar Cotter here, which is interesting, I think, heading up to the next election.
We know that Justin Trudeau gave him $10.5 million at the snap of his fingers.
He didn't seem to care that much about it then, but he saw the outcry afterwards.
And now he's just trying to make amends, I think, by putting up a little bit of a fight and saying, no, Omar, we want you to sort of pay for what you've done.
But really, at the end of the day, it's up to the judge, I suppose.
So, Kean, I think in the weeks and months ahead, and this is just pure speculation on my part, but I'm wondering if the other arrow in Omar's legalistic quiver is to play the Islamophobia card, namely that as a devout Muslim, he must go to Mecca to take part in the Hajj and that to deny him the opportunity to do so is not merely an attack on him and his family, but on his very faith.
And I'm just kind of worried you might have a judge here in Canada that would actually buy into that nonsense.
I mean, you don't have to speculate to see that.
Omar Cotter is already doing that.
As disgusting as that sounds, as manipulative as that sounds, that's the first thing that he said when he went out to the press conference to sob to the CBC and the rest of the mainstream media about his plight and how awful his life has been, especially when he compared Canada to Guantanamo Bay.
It's absolutely astounding the lengths that this man will go to to manipulate Canadians.
Yeah, especially since from what I've read of Guantanamo Bay, it was not the hellhole it's been depicted as.
I mean, they were very accommodating to the Islamist terrorists that were there.
But one last question, Kian.
You mentioned the CBC.
The other appalling factor of the Cotter saga is the fact that he and his family, at least in my eyes, seem to be just such wonderful little media darlings.
And I came across some mention, I think it was a CBC journalist, that compared Omar's atrocities in the past to a teenager carrying out an act of vandalism in his or her past, which is absolutely perverse and egregious.
What have you picked up in terms of how the media coverage has been regarding this individual?
You know, at that press conference, nobody was asking any tough questions whatsoever besides the rebel who's there.
They were asking a few legal-based questions.
Border Justice Riddle00:14:58
Oh, do you regret taking this legal path that you did that's put you in this situation, that kind of thing?
Nobody asked him if he regretted killing Christopher Spear.
Somebody asked him if he wished he could go back to when he was 15 years old and not throw a grenade, changing the life of dozens of people who keep in mind, he's not the center of this story.
The center of this story are those wounded on the other end of his grenade.
And the mainstream media has just declined to actually shed any light on the other side of the story at all.
Well, Keenan, thanks for this report.
I got to tell you, I don't know really who I have more contempt for.
The likes of Cotter or the government paying him off or the media that just thinks this is a little darling.
This is somehow a good news story of a juvenile delinquent reforming.
There is just so much blame to go around here.
But thank you so much for going to court and seeing firsthand what this fellow is really all about.
No problem.
Thanks for having me.
You got it.
And that's Kian Bextay in Edmonton.
And folks, keep it here.
More of that, we'll round up the time right after this.
Abdullahi Hashifera's candid confession about his gangster past clearly impressed the Immigration and Refugee Board officer who presided over his first detention hearing on November 1st, 2017.
Say, what?
Sure, he was a gangster.
Sure, he led a life of violence and crime.
Sure, he was on the run from police.
But he was just so honest about it.
I just really felt like we had this close connection.
Caught while crossing the border illegally near Emerson, Manitoba, the 27-year-old Somali citizen readily told the Canada Border Services Agency, CBSA, officers he had an extensive criminal record, had been a Somali outlaws gang member in Minneapolis, and was fleeing an arrest warrant for parole violation.
Oh, wow.
All that's missing were a bunch of FBI cars speeding behind him with the flashing lights.
Meet Abdullahi Hashi Farah.
This Somalian-born thug on the run from U.S. authorities is many things.
He's a drug dealer.
He's a gun smuggler.
He's even trafficked for pedophiles.
So naturally, he's just the sort of person we'd want as a future Canadian citizen, right?
Well, at least one immigration and refugee board member thought Farah was the bee's knees because, well, he was just so darn honest about his criminal past.
Joining me now with more on this shocking story is Rebel Commander Ezra Lebed.
Welcome to Rebel Roundup, Ezra.
Thanks.
I couldn't believe this story when I read it.
And almost as shocking was the fact that the CBC published this because they have gone to great lengths to be pro-migration, especially Muslim migration, especially Somali Muslim migration.
That's where, of course, Ahmed Hassan, our immigration minister himself is from.
So this is unusual because this guy, Abdullahi Farah, walked across the border from Minnesota into Canada.
So he's not coming from Somalia.
He's been in Minnesota for years.
Which has a huge Somalian community.
Yeah, right.
If you're in Somalia, you're not a refugee.
Sorry, if you're in Minnesota, you're not a refugee.
No.
In fact, that's not just obvious common sense.
That's part of what's called the safe third party agreement between Canada and the United States.
By law, no one in Canada can apply for refugee status in America and vice versa because we all acknowledge you're not a refugee anymore.
You're safe now.
Yes.
Now, whether or not you're real or not is a different question.
You might be sent home from one of these two countries, but you can't apply for refugee status in the other guy's country.
But Trudeau has allowed that for some reason.
But here's the crazy thing.
This guy, Abdullah Farah, criminal record as long as your arm.
And not just for trivial things.
guns.
As you pointed out, he would essentially kidnap 12-year-old girls and traffic them to be raped.
Obviously drugs, obviously home invasion robberies.
Like this guy, for all, I mean, he wasn't charged with murder, but it wouldn't shock me.
So he just walks across the border.
He's wanted by police in the States.
So he's basically fleeing American cops.
He's not fleeing discrimination back in Somalia.
Somalia is 99% Muslim.
You're not a risk if you're a Muslim in Somalia.
That is all there are there.
So he gets taken before an Immigration and Refugee Board judge.
And for some reason, he just starts to talk about his time with a gang in Minnesota called the Somali Outlaws.
That's a criminal game.
Yes.
And he talks about all these things he did.
And instead of the judge saying, arrest this man and hand him over to the American authorities, he's fleeing.
This immigration judge says, you're so honest.
I was so touched by your honesty.
I really think you're going to be honest in Canada now, too.
Come on in.
And the Border Services police were saying, no, no, Your Honor, wait, we're getting more information on this guy from American police.
Keep him in custody just a few more days, Your Honor.
We're getting info on this guy.
No, no, no.
I saw how honest he was.
And one way, I got to tell you this.
He said, like, how can you be a Muslim refugee from Muslim Somalia?
How does that even work?
He said, oh, I'm gay, Your Honor.
I'm super gay.
I'm so gay, Your Honor.
They'd kill me back home.
I'm totally gay.
I mean, I watch Will and Grace.
I'm super gay.
And Ezra, this is a very important point, I think, because this is, and it was a well-played point on his behalf, because this is the card he had to play to justify not going back to the U.S. to be deported to Somalia, which is, as you said, 99% Muslim.
But if you're a gay Muslim, that doesn't fly there.
But the thing is, obviously, if someone's willing to be a kidnapper, assist in the rape of children, be a drug dealer, a gun dealer, they just might consider lying.
Yes.
Maybe.
And in fact, he wasn't gay.
And police in his phone found all of his Tinder chats with women, found pictures of him having sex with women, found no evidence of homosexuality.
Obviously, he's a liar.
And the fact is he admitted he was a criminal in a terrible way.
And instead of saying, okay, thanks for your admission, normally criminals aren't stupid enough to admit it.
Get out.
He was welcomed in.
And he went on a crime spree in Canada.
He was arrested in Edmonton.
There was a getaway card that had been used in a bunch of convenience store robberies.
This is a one-man crime wave.
And he basically told that to us at the border.
And he didn't slip through the cracks.
This isn't someone who sneaked in.
He walked in and he said, he was brought to a judge.
He said, hey, judge, yeah, it's just me, Somali outlaws.
I do this gang work and that gang work and this criminal work and that criminal work.
So yeah, that's me.
Oh, but I'm gay, so will you let me in?
Yes.
So he didn't slip in.
He was welcomed in.
He was escorted in.
Well, and can you blame him?
I mean, our prime minister put out a tweet basically saying it's open season.
Come on down, like they say on Price is Right.
But Ezra, let me ask you point blank.
Who do you have more contempt for?
Mr. Farah, who is a criminal and actually was honest about his criminality, or the Immigration and Refugee Board person here, Trent Cook, that had this what I consider to be an absolutely perverse interpretation of his confessions and admissions by applauding him for his honesty and letting him to come in to victimize Canadians.
Yeah, you know, it was so disgraceful.
Someone who's an immigration and refugee board judge has an enormous public duty.
We entrust him with our safety.
And for him to be so derelict in his duty shows a great disrespect for the law and for Canadians.
And the fact that he was shown to be such a fool here, he not only disrespected us, but just out of self-respect, he should resign.
What he did, all the wreckage and carnage in Canada, all these robberies, all this drug dealing in Canada because this damn fool immigration and refugee board judge, I just, I really feel you're honest and I really, you know, you're wonderful.
No one like that should be in any position of authority.
If he had any respect for Canadians, this refugee board judge should resign.
And he hasn't resigned because he doesn't respect us.
Well, to my knowledge, Ezra, he hasn't even shown any regret.
He hasn't even apologized.
Tell me, the system when it comes to these judges making these outrageous decisions that results in the harm of other Canadians, is there actually a process where they can be removed for just making, you know, the bad call time and time again?
You know, this is an immigration and refugee board judge, so it's different than other judges.
Most judges in Canada are appointed for life and are immune to political retaliation, let's say.
But there is a judicial council.
Now, the judicial council generally doesn't fire people just for making a series of really stupid decisions.
They only, because judges are allowed to make errors.
It's only unethical conduct or being drunk or not applying the law.
You can apply the law incorrectly.
We accept in advance that judges are going to get things wrong.
That's why we have courts of appeal.
And we accept sometimes that courts of appeal will get things wrong.
That's why we have the Supreme Court.
So you can't fire a judge just because they're wrong.
And I don't think that this judge's stupidity and lack of concern for Canadians and the fact that he's just plain stupid.
I don't think that's enough to remove a judge from the court.
But if he had any grace to him, he would resign on his own device.
Well, it's enough for me, certainly, to remove somebody like this because I see him as a danger to the safety, the public safety of Canadians en masse.
And you know, the other thing too, Ezra, even though he was apologetic for his criminal past, to me, there was no indication that he was a reformed criminal.
And I say that because, as you mentioned in your commentary, the very fact that he came into Canada, it made him an illegal or irregular immigrant.
He is breaking the law.
It's just like what we endured last month with the migrant caravan.
Homeland Security said they had identified 270 hardened criminals.
So the apologists would say, well, see, Menzies, that means the vast majority of the 5,000 are law-abiding citizens.
Well, no, they're not.
They are trespassing on sovereign land without a passport or a visa.
So every second of every day, they're a criminal, as was this individual.
Anyone from Minnesota can apply to come to Canada.
You go to the consulates or the embassy, or you go to an official border crossing, a port of entry as it's called.
So you walk up to the border to the officer and you say, I would like to apply.
You don't come in illegally.
This guy came in illegally.
All the people at Wroxham Road between New York and Quebec are coming in illegally.
There's a huge sign that says it is illegal.
Every single person who walks in and says, I'm here to claim asylum, their very first act in Canadian soil was breaking the law.
And that's a signal that they don't care about our laws.
They're gaming the system.
They're taking us for suckers.
And if their very first act is to audaciously break the law, you can bet that they won't have compunction about breaking the law the next occasion.
So you're correct.
I mean, it is possible.
If someone in Minnesota really wanted to come to move to Canada, you can do that lawfully.
He did not do that.
These Mexican caravans did not do that.
You could apply to move to America.
You can apply for asylum.
Go to the embassy in Mexico City.
Or there's probably 20 American consulates throughout Mexico.
Same thing.
Canada has a ton of consulates in the U.S.
These are criminal lawbreakers and it will not stop.
In fact, you just came back from Marrakesh where these migrants are being granted human rights.
Most international treaties are between states.
So Canada and the United States and Mexico have a free trade treaty.
The three countries have rights and obligations to each other as countries.
The UN Migration Compact that you covered isn't really an international treaty because France doesn't have rights against Canada.
Canada doesn't have rights against Japan.
It grants rights to individual migrants to say, I have the right to come to Canada now.
So when people say, oh, it's not actually a treaty, well, no one said it was.
But what it does is it gives this Abdullah Farah a legal right.
He can say, well, in this 34-page compact, I have the right to a human rights lawyer.
I have the right to health care in my own language.
It's in there.
I have the right to bring all my relatives over regardless of their skill level.
That's in there.
So he can show this document to the Immigration Review Board because Section 33F of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act clearly says Canadian law must take into account any international documents we've signed.
And this week, Canada signed the Global Compact for Migration.
I'm shocked that this guy will even be deported, and he hasn't been deported yet.
He might yet not be.
Incredible.
Ezra, an amazing story.
There's so many other angles, but we have to wrap it here.
And folks already have it in terms of Mr. Farah.
That's just one example of one egregious person playing the system.
The question for which we do not have an answer to is how many other Frauds in the last three years have come to our country?
Poles And Climate Diplomacy00:10:37
Is it dozens, hundreds, a few thousand?
We don't know.
And I think that that's a very ominous feeling I have in my heart regarding our immigration system, to be sure.
Keep it here.
more of rebel roundup to come right after this it's our second day here in katowice poland for the 24th annual un climate change conference and And this is truly the conference that Irony built.
Last night it was cold and a little bit damp.
Today the Climate Change Conference is enjoying some climate change, as in the climate change for the worse.
It's snowing, it's a blizzard here today.
As per usual at UN climate change conferences, there's the dull hum of diesel generators and diesel heat heating everything inside these disposable buildings here to my left.
And there's some high-level trolling going on by the Polish government.
You see, where I'm standing right now, it's the Silesian Museum.
It's a museum to the area's industrial history, namely coal mining.
And the conference butts up to and is on part of the museum grounds.
And it's a tip of the hat from the Polish government to the United Nations that despite what they are talking about inside these conferences, phasing out coal, that coal will always be a part of Poland's future here.
So what did we learn from the most recent United Nations Climate Change Conference?
Well, for starters, the UN's hypocrisy apparently knows no bounds.
So when the thermometer plunges, they just crank up those carbon-spewing generators to generate some heat.
After all, freezing in the dark is only for the deplorables, not for the UN elites.
So certainly the UN learned a valuable lesson itself earlier this week pertaining to climate change.
And I think that lesson is this.
Next time, don't schedule a climate change shindig in Poland in December.
And with more on the UN's latest display of double standard virtue signaling is our very own Sheila Gunreed joining me now from Poland.
Welcome to Rebel Roundup, my friend.
Hey, David, thanks for having me.
Always a pleasure, Sheila.
Now, Sheila, for starters, to paraphrase a line from what's become the most politically incorrect Christmas song, namely, Baby, It Was Cold Outside, it's kind of funny that the UN head on shows wouldn't even let you in the building to warm up.
Why, Sheila?
Well, as you know, I was banned from the United Nations Climate Change Conference because I asked a question of a Canadian delegate two years ago, which resulted in us being banned last year and again this year.
And I guess you being banned in Morocco also.
So apologies for that.
But I think you were able to get some fantastic work done while you were there in Morocco.
Oh, so you're to blame for my betting too.
And I'm the lovable one.
You're the feisty troublemaker.
I mean, why are they taking it out on me?
Isn't this against leftist principles of profiling, you know, a group?
I mean, you know, shouldn't they be using it just for individuals?
But no, you're right.
Sometimes the anarchy and the nonsense outside the conferences is better than the snore fest that's presumably happening inside.
And certainly with your segment, Sheila, again, it was so delightful.
There was so much unintentional comedy all over the map in that city where you went.
Like, for example, the Canadian Santa Claus that lives in China.
What was the deal with that guy?
That guy was Sustainable Clause.
That's what his name was.
And he was out on the street corner with these like two really dirty stuffed animals.
And he was warning everybody about the dangers of indulgently using fossil fuels.
And then he went on to tell us that he's a Canadian who lives in China, the world's most polluted country, arguably, who last year took a group of him and his friends to the top of Mount Everest, which seems like you need a lot of hydrocarbons to do that sort of stuff.
Again, to demonstrate climate change.
Like the whole conference.
The people in Poland are dangerously normal.
They don't even pay attention to this stuff.
They walk past a generator like it's nothing, like I would normally do at home.
You see a generator at home, you just walk past it.
It's just how things are when it's cold out.
But all these delegates at the climate change conference, they're inside another world.
It's literally a big bubble that they're inside, and they don't even know how they're staying warm outside, as there's a literal blizzard outside.
Like there was a blizzard on the United Nations lizards, and they didn't even realize how they were staying warm.
Like they completely tuned out the hum of the diesel generators that were keeping them comfortable.
And you know, here's what gets me, Sheila: that you would think these UN poopas, just for optics, would, for one of these climate change conferences or any conference, practice what they preach.
For example, in Morocco, and I bet it was the same in Poland.
What I noticed in terms of the vehicles ushering delegates to the conference venue, we're talking six-figure V8 and even V12 Mercedes-Benz automobiles, not bicycles.
I presume they didn't walk to Marrakech.
They probably flew in a jet and they probably flew first class.
And so it's carbon galore.
Yet these people with a straight face have the audacity to say, Can you turn the thermostat down?
Can you turn the lights off?
Can you go back to the dawn of man?
Because we had more of a carbon neutral footprint back then.
I am just stunned by the hypocrisy, Sheila.
Well, you saw it firsthand yourself.
You were in Morocco, so I know you saw the parking lot full of idling cars, the idling six-figure cars.
Those things are customary at United Nations conferences.
The same thing at Bonn, Germany last year.
All the cars were idling to keep the delegates toasty and warm for their, you know, 30-foot walk from the conference to the car.
The car is idle for two hours.
We staked out the tram station to see if any of the delegates were using the trams.
They really weren't.
The tram station was just ended up being a place of protest, actually, for Greenpeace.
The electric bikes, those things are also genuinely the same thing happened in Bonn, Germany.
Nobody used the bikes to get around.
Same thing here.
Nobody used the bikes.
We staked out the bikes for quite a while.
We saw that three were missing, but those three never came back.
So hopefully they were stolen by someone who will use them.
You know, and Sheila, here's another thing.
I'd like you to explain to me, because I can't quite figure this out, why the UN would choose Poland for this climate change conference.
I say this based on a few things.
First of all, you said that the Poles are shockingly normal, reasonable people that don't buy into this dogma.
Secondly, this is a country that is very much pro-coal.
So was this the UN saying, like foisting itself on Poland, almost trying to do a conversion of Polish attitudes to get them over to their side of things?
It's a battle of wits, I think.
I was talking to Mark Murano, and he said in the last 10 years or so, Poland has ended up hosting these things three times because the United Nations wants to focus on Poland because if they can't get Poland to buy in, they really can't get Eastern Europe to buy into their climate change dogma.
So they keep focusing on Poland, but Poland won't budge.
In fact, they put the conference in Katowice, which is the heart of coal country.
I went actually downtown today to buy some souvenirs for my kids, and everything has a coal miner on it, which I love.
But Poland put the whole conference in Katowice basically to say to the United Nations, Yeah, we'll take your tourist dollars.
Yeah, we'll take the economic benefit of having 22,000 do-girders come to our city of 300,000, but no, coal is not going anywhere.
Wow, and I think the UN is delusional if they think they can wear down the Poles.
The Poles are a resilient people.
They put up with the Nazis, they put up with the Soviet communists.
So the idea that they're going to buy into this new age, wacky way of supposedly heating our homes and fueling our vehicles is a pipe dream, to say the least.
Sheila, one last question.
Of all the crazy inanity that you saw outside the conference, is there one lasting enduring memory you have of just something that was so bizarre or so unintentionally funny for all the wrong reasons?
Well, there was one that was actually intentionally funny.
It was when Mark Murano from Climate Depot dressed in this atrocious Santa costume.
He looked like homeless Santa.
And he took a bag of coal across the street from the conference and went into the Greenpeace offices and gave them all little lumps of coal.
And they just sat there, sort of shell-shocked and dumbfounded as Mark Murano and his entourage barged into their offices and gave them coal for being naughty, trying to force Poland away from their own sovereignty, away from their freedom from the Soviet Union, to be quite honest, and from Putin or the reborn Soviet Union under Putin.
And he gave them all coal for being naughty and trying to betray the sovereignty of Poland and forcing them away from coal.
Well, good for Mark, and that's fantastic.
Although, I got to tell you, Sheila, the fatal flaw of that caper was that these people have never seen a lump of coal in their lives.
Mark should have said these are dilithium crystals, and they would have hugged the guy for bringing this alternative futuristic feel to them.
So, anyway, Sheila, again, you did a fantastic job, especially since you couldn't even, like myself, you couldn't even get into the bloody conference hall.
Armed Security and Fences00:04:35
But there's more grist for the mill outside, as always.
So, thank you again for your wonderful reports.
Hey, David, thanks for having me on.
You got it.
And that's Sheila Gunnread from Poland.
And folks, keep it here.
More of Rebel Roundup to come right after this.
Well, folks, walking around the U.N. compound here in Marrakesh, the irony is staggering.
After all, the people attending the UN Conference on Migration, oh, they hate fences and walls.
They're all about open migration.
They don't like the idea of borders.
But check out this place.
There's lots of fences and walls.
And not only that, there is heavily armed security and police everywhere you go, even bomb-sniffing dogs.
And if you can get actually to the conference entry, you're going to go through airport-style security before you get anywhere near any of the delegates taking part in this conference.
So I guess it's two sets of rules, isn't it?
I mean, for us deplorables, no walls, no fences, no borders.
But for the UN elite, well, they very much like walls and fences, and they will only get together in an environment that rivals Fort Knox in terms of security.
Well, knock me down with a feather.
Once again, the rank and file of United Nations people just can't help themselves when it comes to being shameless hypocrites.
Which is to say, I discovered earlier this week that walls and fences are oh so very bad when it comes to nations curtailing the 258 million migrants the world over who are seeking greener pastures.
But when it comes to a UN confab, oh boy, do these fat cats love the idea of being kept safe and sound within a gated community.
All the better to keep the riffraff out, after all.
In any event, here's what some of you had to say about the UN's ongoing official slogan of do as I say, not as I do.
Janice Van Horn writes, They better get used to living like that with lots of security and walls and fences, because if they get their new world order, I picture them having a lot of enemies.
Ah, but that's the thing, Janice.
The UN elite is already very much used to living this way.
When they met up in Marrakech at the migrant conference, they merely imported the fences and walls and armed security that is oh so du rigueur for them back in their home countries.
And MV Arenda 1000 writes, and we pay the bill for both scenarios.
Well, you nailed it, MV.
This was one of the perversely ironic things I discovered when covering the migrant caravan in southern Mexico last month as some 5,000 Central Americans headed towards the USA.
Namely, given all the UN people and resources on the ground, American taxpayers were essentially funding an invasion of their own country.
And I think most American taxpayers would prefer their hard-earned cash going towards, oh, I don't know, building a wall.
And 2532ROBH1 writes, go to the door and tell them you want to freely migrate in.
I don't see the problem.
Oh, if only it were that easy, my friend.
We did go through the airport-style security to get to the media registration desk to request our credentials.
We were told those credentials would not be forthcoming due to our bad behavior at previous UN conferences.
And how does one define bad behavior?
Is it by asking questions that the UN elites consider to be, oh, I don't know, impolite?
Well, yeah, apparently journalists who don't perform like trained SEALs make for media non-grata.
And Alfalfa 6945 writes, the rebel needs to form a caravan and cross those guarded borders.
Everyone knows a caravan is the ticket to having the fake media take notice and get on your side.
Oh my god, Alfalfa, what a brilliant idea.
I wish we really had thought of that.
Then again, there were tons of heavily armed security at this conference.
And I'm pretty sure if we had gone for gold, we would have received lead instead.
Well, that wraps up another edition of Rebel Roundup.
Thanks so much for joining us.
See you next week.
And hey, folks, never forget, without risk, there could be no glory.