Ezra Levant’s podcast examines Facebook’s collaboration with the White House to censor "misinformation," highlighting his team’s $40K TriCaster upgrade for live-streaming eight guests while rejecting government funding. He ties COVID-era lockdowns to psychological fear, comparing them to South Africa’s unrest—where looting destroyed schools, hospitals, and food depots—while praising Fight the Fines’ legal wins, like Madeline Smith’s dismissal of Rob’s charges in Australia. The segment critiques media narratives, such as Nimoy’s Star Trek being weaponized for climate misinformation, and Jen Sackey’s claims about anti-vaccine content, suggesting tech censorship aligns with Democratic pressures rather than public safety. Legal delays and fines, Levant argues, serve as deterrents, not justice, while independent voices like DeSantis and Abbott remain key to resisting overreach. [Automatically generated summary]
When I was last with you on Wednesday at noon, we had a series of hiccups with a piece of hardware called a TriCaster.
That's the brand name of it.
TriCasters, at least the device we have from them, basically is our studio in a box I've heard it described as.
It takes the video feed.
It allows us to add in a Skype feed.
It allows us to show graphics.
It's connected to the digital backdrop you see behind me.
So for that to go down was a serious business.
And I think we had three hiccups on Wednesday.
So we had to rush out and get a new TriCaster, which is so important.
It's almost like a new engine in a car.
It's that important and sort of what works everything else.
Now, yesterday, we hadn't quite hooked it all up yet because we got a great TriCaster.
It's actually an improvement you can imagine in six years, the advancements in audio video technology.
Anyways, 38 grand for that new piece of hardware.
Just shocking.
But when I think back at Sun News Network of how the control room was, I remember we had a million dollar studio.
It really was a million dollars.
The cameras alone were a quarter million dollars each.
They were robot cameras.
This was 10 years ago.
The big over-the-shoulder cameras were over 100 grand.
It's just incredible what we can do with a fraction of that now.
And so although I think $38,000 is a lot of money for a piece of hardware called a TriCaster, when I think back at Sun News, what it replaced, five people in a control room, each one working a different piece of hardware, it actually is a miracle.
Now, my colleagues Efron Monsanto, our head of video, and Mocha Bezirgan, our chief videographer, they, along with Justin, made the decision of which what we needed, and we need a couple of other computers that are getting old too.
So Mocha and Efron put together the following video of we're going to crowdfund it.
That's what we do.
So we have a website called ournewstudio.com.
Here's a video that Mocha and Efron did yesterday.
Hey guys, had a video for Rebel News here, Afron Monsanto, along with Chief Videographer Mocha Bezirgan.
We're here to tell you that we need your help once again.
Our TriCaster is no longer working.
It's been working for the last six years, but it's not working any longer.
If you were watching our live streams, you must have noticed that we were running into issues during live stream.
And this TriCaster has been in the company before I even joined as an intern back in 2017.
This actually filmed the election night coverage that Ezra had in 2015.
This has a lot of history.
This has been through a lot of iconic rebel moments.
Remember the time that David was arrested in Brampton for bringing you the other side?
And we had to go live immediately.
Hello, everybody, and welcome to this very special emergency live stream.
I have some terrible news to report.
My friend and colleague David Menzies, beloved by many public interest journalists, was just arrested.
And also remember when you were holding the phone to your face instead of recording the action.
Arrest them or go away.
Okay, we're left with that.
My colleagues, you're not with me.
Yeah, a lot of history in this TriCaster, all these live streams.
This actually films Ezra Levant's nightly show every weekday, Andrew's weekly show, and even David's show every week.
This plays an integral part of the company.
We're looking to upgrade our equipment to help bring you a better side of the story that you'll never see anywhere else.
This includes getting a new TriCaster.
This will be the TriCaster Elite 2.
This will help us increase our production value for live streaming.
We can scream up to eight different guests at the same time.
We can have online debates across the nation, just like we've done before.
You've seen Catherine's coverage throughout the pandemic all throughout Ontario.
You've seen Sydney's coverage when we sent them over to Manitoba to show you the other side of Fight the Fines for some of the egregious lockdown arrests there.
You've seen Pastor Tim Stevens arrested in front of his family, recorded by our team who were there at a moment's notice.
No hesitation.
We want to give you the other side.
If you can provide us once again with the proper equipment, we can continue to do that.
Yeah, unlike the corporate press, we don't get a tax bailout to a tune of nearly $600 million every year.
We would never do that.
We would never trade our integrity for views or for any other things.
We want to keep bringing you the other side of the story.
And we would be truthful to you, the rebel viewer who continuously watches us.
We're looking just for modest equipment.
The laptops are around $2,500 all in.
They're simply high-performance laptops to do field reporting.
Well, Mocha's out in the field across the nation.
He wants to be able to finish the report that same night.
And we're also looking to get desktop computers for our office workers to help increase their production efficiency as well.
These computers are pretty modest.
They're not high-end.
They're simply just work computers to get them done.
You can see the specifications we asked for.
They're going to cost a couple thousand each, but these will last several years at the bare minimum.
Then we're also looking for a new TriCaster, the Elite Edition.
It's going to cost us $40,000.
And I know that sounds like a lot, but it's going to last quite a long time.
You've seen the troubles we've had with the live stream and some other stuff.
And we want to make sure our production quality is top-notch.
You know, we will never take government money like the CBC and our competitors do.
You forcibly have to pay for the CBT through your tax dollars, and you have no say in that.
You have a say to whether or not you want to help us and help bring you these stories, and no one else will.
You know what?
It was Mocha's bumper at the end of that.
It was so funny.
Play the bumper.
It made me laugh just the last minute there.
Well, that's Efron and Mocha.
And I'm glad I said to Mocha yesterday, I'm glad to see his hairs growing back in.
It was even bigger before.
It reminded me of Slash from Guns N' Roses.
Oh, here's Mocha with some final thoughts to his video there.
Take a look.
Thanks to you, the Rebel Viewer.
You make this possible.
Head over to ournewstudio.com and chip in if you can.
Thanks again for watching.
It's much appreciated.
If you chip in for this, we're going to appreciate it and we're going to produce high-quality content.
If you don't, you're not going to go to jail.
We're not going to send armed men after you.
We're not going to take any legal action against you.
Unlike other media that are connected to the government.
We're not going to print any money to devalue your currency in your pocket.
Okay, we're just, this is completely kosher, completely halal, completely voluntary, completely legal, completely okay.
That's great.
And Mocha's in the studio room right now.
You know, it's both halal and kosher.
And by the way, there's a lot of overlap because neither includes pork.
You know, we got to have more of Mocha on screen.
I mean, I know he's busy.
He's like a triple threat.
He's got the videography.
He's got the editing.
But I just, you know, I follow him on Instagram.
I don't follow a lot of people on Instagram.
Don't really understand how to use the app, but I make a point of following Mocha.
Sometimes it's in Turkish, so I'll admit I don't understand it, but I really like what I do understand, and I'm really glad he came around to talking about government coercion.
Mocha and Efron, two of my favorite people, and I was thrilled that Efron showed a little shot of him when he was a fresh-faced intern coming out of school.
Anyhow, so that is, but it's working, right?
I mean, now, Justin, you've been puttering around with the new hardware for a day or so.
What functionality does it have that our old TriCaster doesn't have?
And folks, don't worry, I'm not going to stay on this for long.
I just want to tell you, it's a big deal for us.
It's our central piece of hardware.
What does it have, Justin?
We have a lot more internet than a lot of organizations.
We can have multiple guys guests over these guests or any other type of guest.
Okay, well, maybe you can give me like a tour of it or something when we're all figuring it out because I'd love to see some of that functionality.
So, thank you to our team that managed to get that new piece of hardware really quick.
It took us a day to set it up.
So, sorry we didn't have our live stream yesterday, but it looks like it's working.
And thanks to Efron and Mocha for doing the crowdfunding pitch.
Appreciate that.
All right, so enough shop talk.
Let's get down to the news.
I've said for a while now that the worst thing about the lockdowns, well, I think the worst thing about the lockdowns is what it's done to kids.
Other than that, I think the worst thing about the lockdowns is how it has rewired people's brains to make them internalize the fear and the superstitions of lockdownism and to go beyond what the law says and become little enforcers, little scolds, little informants, a little secret police for lockdownism.
Can you find that tweet I did yesterday about that guy who was talking about his wife?
He had to come and rescue his wife.
This is just a tweet.
I don't even know who this guy is.
And it's just a still picture.
It's not a video.
But his wife was grocery shopping, and she has a mask exemption.
So she's not just saying I don't wear a mask.
She actually had an exemption, I presume, for medical reasons or whatever.
None of my business.
And the guy, a big guy, comes up to her and just gets in her grill, harasses her.
She was so scared, apparently, that she had to call her husband to come and rescue her.
Did you see that one I did?
And it's not much to see other than I want to show you the photograph of this guy.
Yeah, thanks very much.
Had to just pick up my distraught wife from Kohl's after this creep tried to stop her getting a trolley and then followed her around taking photos of her for not wearing a mask, despite her having an exception.
I'm ropeable, which I presume is an Aussie way of saying really mad.
And then I, yeah, so he's following her.
He looks like a fairly big guy.
Looks like he's about 60.
And do you have my reply to there?
I don't know if you have my reply.
I can tell you what I said.
I said the first thing that I always note in these cases, if he were truly afraid of your wife, he'd have run away from her.
Like if she had a bolt, if you saw someone on the street and someone said, and let's say they were coughing, and someone said, oh my God, he's got Ebola.
And if you believed them, would you run to them?
No, you would not.
You would run away from them.
You would hold your breath and run away.
Maybe even close your eyes.
And you would run.
If he were truly afraid of your wife, he'd have run away from her.
He's not, of course.
Now, this is my own psychoanalysis, which I'm not very good at.
But what do you think of this, Justin?
He's afraid, not of the disease, but of being scolded and bullied if he doesn't wear a mask.
So he wanted to do to her what he's afraid of someone doing to him.
He's managing his fears by transposing them onto her.
So what does he think will happen if he doesn't wear a mask?
People will scold him.
People will marginalize him.
People will be mean to him.
He might get in trouble.
He might get the police.
He'll be at least a social pariah.
These are all the reasons why he himself wears a mask.
Health has nothing to do with it.
Like I say, if he was truly afraid of this woman at a shopping center, at a grocery store, he would run away from her.
And so to justify his cowardice, to justify his decision to wear a mask, he has to make his fears real for that other person.
Otherwise, he just comes across as a scaredy cat.
So if no one else will scold her, shame her, marginalize her, arrest her, he's got to fill that role.
Because remember, that's his psychological justification for being a bit of a coward and submissive and complying and wearing a mask that he knows has nothing to do with help.
It's all about virtue signaling.
He knows that there's no health justification.
There has to be a social justification, a political justification.
I don't want to get in trouble justification.
And if this woman can live a counterexample by going about her business without those harsh hassles and scolds, then his justification, his rationale, his excusology for being a coward wastes away.
And he can't have that.
If there is no comeuppance, if there's something that happens to her, then what's his excuse?
So he desperately needs that excuse.
He desperately needs to say, well, I mean, he would say something different.
He'd say, I'm doing it for public health.
But he's really doing it because he doesn't want to be scolded or marginalized or hassled.
So if another person, a woman, and it's always a guy versus a gal, by the way, because he wants to play the role of police.
And I found that very, it's just so classic.
None of these scolds are actually afraid of the virus.
And they never say they are.
It's always follow the rules.
And then if you listen to them long enough, they always come around to saying, if I have to do it, you have to do it.
And that's the real giveaway.
And by the way, there's something to that.
But the answer is not let's all be enslaved together.
The answer should be, let's all be free together.
And we have, now I don't know where this footage is.
Mob Mentality in South Africa00:17:36
Do you know where this train footage is from?
It sounded somewhere Hispanic.
I think it might be Spanish.
It might not be.
It doesn't even matter.
It doesn't even matter.
Because this goes to, like I say, the worst part of the lockdowns besides what's being done to the kids is how it has become internalized in us and how it has pitted us against each other.
It's turned us into snitches and informants and scolds.
And in the case of that guy, the grocery store, a bit of a bully.
And look at this.
I think this is a train.
Take a look at this subway, take a look.
Yeah, they're so proud, aren't they?
You know, again, that's not what you do if there's someone who's who you think is a health risk.
You don't run to them and touch them.
And if you're worried about them violating your physical integrity, you don't violate their physical integrity.
And how do you know that he wasn't exempt?
How do you know that he doesn't have asthma or one of the many medical reasons, or frankly, psychological reasons, not to wear a mask?
And I don't think they ever spoke with him, did they?
They just denounced him.
It was like that scene.
Remember that movie from that TV series a few years ago, Game of Thrones, where they had this walk of shame by the defrock queen.
Shame, shame, shame.
And there was this cathartic two minutes of hate, very powerful scene I recall from that show.
That's what they were doing here.
They were expiating their own rage at being locked down onto this one scapegoat who dared to be free.
I don't know where that was.
Was that Spanish?
I couldn't tell.
It sounded like it.
You know, it could have been another romantic language like that.
It almost doesn't matter because that's so ubiquitous in the Western world now.
I don't think the third world is like that.
You know, 20 years ago, before wokeism was a thing, there was a series of funny blogs.
Blogs were a thing before the age of social media.
And there's a popular blog called Things White People Like.
And it was really funny.
It was like pumpkin spice lattes.
And this was before the age of rage and racial disharmony that we're in now.
You would never have a site called Things White People Like Now.
And if you did, it would all be things that condemned white people.
It wouldn't be funny things like, oh yeah, pumpkin spice lattice.
And my point is that another way of saying that is rich people problems or first world problems.
You know, there was a series of blogs back then.
There's certain things that you have to be rich and carefree to worry about.
And I think that poor people, people in the third world, they have too many real problems in life to be worried about a disease that has a 99.9% recovery rate for anyone under 70.
They have real problems.
Are they going to be able to feed their family?
Are they going to get regular health care for regular things?
I think it's only the luxurious Western elite that can have this problem that's actually a non-problem in any substantial way, but it allows them to have the frisson, the excitement of a crisis that's never really actually critical.
I mean, you want to see a crisis.
Look at South Africa.
Did you see that?
Did you see their torching?
Now they're not just torching shops with retail goods now.
I saw what was described on Twitter as torching food, like grocery, wholesale and shipping and trucking logistics centers.
And I saw, I don't know if you can find any of this, I'm throwing this at you real time, Justin, sorry, but I saw some milk, like some, you know, you sometimes see tanker trucks on the highway, and you know they're different from like oil or something because they're they're usually stainless steel or whatever and they're polished so clean and you know that's either vegetable oil or milk.
You ever see, yeah, this is it, that's exactly it.
So when you see these trucks on the road, they're spotless.
They're milk trucks, right?
You can sort of tell a milk truck.
These milk trucks, and there's a lot of them here, are spilling their milk on the ground.
It's got to be thousands of liters, maybe tens of thousands.
Like each one of those.
Like just think about how much milk is in there.
Now, can you show me the caption?
Because I don't want to go just from my memory here.
Was there a caption on that tweet?
Because I seem to recall they were saying that the milk processing or the dairy processing facility, thousands of liters of milk having to be dumped today in South Africa after looters destroyed the depot.
And he is a sort of a citizen journalist there.
So I take him at his word that that's what this is.
And I believe it, because can you show me, like that was just sad.
We didn't see any violence there.
We saw the effects of violence.
These trucks are full of milk.
They can't stay there forever.
They're supposed to drop it off.
What are they going to do?
Someone made the decision just to dump the milk.
I mean, what are you going to do?
You're going to take it back to the farm?
What can you do with the milk?
Like, what an incredible, incredible waste.
You know, I don't know if you know this.
I'm going from memory here.
Justin, in 1917, I understand from my memory, and I'll have to check it, that Russia was the world's largest exporter of wheat in 1917.
Now, I'm going from, I haven't checked that stat in a while, but I'm going from my memory, so take it with that grain of salt.
By the time the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, some, what's that, 72 years later, the Soviet Union had become the world's largest importer of wheat.
And it's obvious why communism, the Holodomor targeting of Ukrainian farmers, the forced collectivization of farms.
You know, in the Soviet Union, 1% of the land, you could have a tiny private plot, and that 1% of the land that you were allowed to have, like a private garden, represented, I'm trying to remember the number if it was 10% of the production.
And again, I'm just going, that isn't even from memory.
That's just a rough, rough remembrance.
My point is, the forced collectivization, the destruction of private property turned Russia and the Soviet Union into a beggar nation that could not feed itself.
And so too with Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia, once the breadbasket of Africa on the verge of starving.
And I am deeply worried that South Africa, when you, South Africa is an interesting, I've never been, it's a mix.
There's great wealth, but there's also poverty, but there's also a growing middle class and people trying to get ahead.
And it is the kind of place where if you destroy the infrastructure and if you destroy businesses, it will fall back into poverty so quickly.
It'll be like Zimbabwe.
It will go to the brink of starvation.
And when I see food being destroyed like that, can you show me the burning?
Like it's not just looting, you know, flat screen TVs and games and like retail luxury goods.
Can I can we see this in the context of the the tweet itself?
So just widespread looting.
Like there's some images that look like a war zone and that show trucks and warehouses and if you find them on Twitter.
Yeah, looters, rioters with a fire in the road.
All right, so that's just a snapshot.
Baby thrown from buildings set on fire by looters.
Oh my God, that's terrible.
School on fire.
Oh my God.
Mass unrest erupted with rioting.
Here a shopping center has been looted and a fire set.
Yeah, I mean look at that.
So just terrible.
Keep going.
Yeah, let's see what we got here.
South African mother threw her baby.
Oh my God, I don't even want to, that's so terrible.
I don't even want to read that again.
Afrox building on fire.
I don't know what Afrox is.
Livelihoods destroyed.
It looks huge, whatever Afrox is.
Armed citizens fire back.
I saw that clip before.
What's this?
Hospital on fire.
You know, I can't think of anything more harmful.
It has emerged that an Afrox building near Queen Nandy Drive in Durban in KwaZulu-Natal was on fire.
There are also reports of explosions around the area.
I'm just going to Google Afrox just because I don't know what it is.
Is it like a shopping center?
I can't even find it.
African Oxygen Limited.
Sounds like an industrial company.
I don't want my stuff.
Show me more of these.
Another clip from that school aftermath.
They looted it and set it on fire.
Who are they harming?
Oh, this is the terrifying one.
This is what I was talking about.
Thank you.
This is the one.
Footage shot from a helicopter shows fires at warehouses and people gathering outside truck depots in the north of Durban.
More than 70 people have been killed in the unrest, the worst in South Africa for years, and hundreds of businesses have been wrecked.
Yeah, let this video play a little bit.
The size of these riots, the number of participants, I don't even know how many police it would be.
Like it's a total societal breakdown.
You're not going to retake that with less than a thousand cops or soldiers.
I just don't, like, like you got 50 cops.
Don't even send them.
Keep scrolling.
Several trucks were set on fire on a main highway in South Africa on Friday night, closing one of the country's biggest roads.
Take a moment to watch this short film, South Africa is on fire.
The imprisonment of, yeah, because Jacob Zuma, a crooked ex-leader, was imprisoned.
So they just burning the whole place there.
Why are you burning a school?
Did the school did that?
Building set on fire in Durban.
Riot police firing rubber bullets.
We saw that video before.
KFC is on fire.
Yeah, just it looks terrifying, doesn't it?
Another angle of that stack of cars on fire.
The local prison is on fire.
Trashed.
Oh, I hate that one about throwing the baby.
That's terrifying.
I just can't even stand to read those words.
Buildings on fire, stores looted out, told somewhere in KwaZulu, Natal.
Yeah, that's the baby scene again.
What's that fire there?
Did we see that one already?
KwaZulu.
The Afrox blood.
I don't know what Afrox is, and I had some trouble.
What is Afrox?
I don't know.
I've just never heard of it.
Afrox is a chemical, African oxygen, a chemical manufacturing company.
Is that what that is?
Maybe it is, oil and gas petroleum services.
Yeah, maybe it's like Shell.
Maybe it's like Shell or Exxon.
I think that's what it is.
I just never heard of it before.
Sorry.
Terrifying.
Societal breakdown.
Low trust society.
Everyone for themselves.
Grab what you can.
But that doesn't explain at all.
You know, not that riots are often rational.
Sometimes they're the opposite of rational.
They're a form of madness.
But there is some rationale to riots, especially if they have a purported political overtone.
Harming some enemy.
I'm going to riot and burn down my enemy's stuff.
But that rarely happens because, you know, your enemy is probably, if he thinks of himself as your enemy, maybe he's armed.
Maybe he's defended.
It reminds me of when Black Lives Matter riots burned down black businesses in black neighborhoods.
That's not your enemy.
How are you helping black people by burning down black neighborhoods and destroying black businesses?
And like you're burning a school?
If that school, I'm sure that was a black school.
You're burning anything to do with food.
How are you helping anybody?
You're burning a logistics center, a trucking warehouse center.
Haven't you just made everything worse for everyone?
Looting a retail store.
All right, so maybe you've hurt some big corporate brands, but I think as much as anything, you've hurt the people who work there.
Just mindless.
Self-destructive.
And I'm really worried that what happened to Zimbabwe, just, I mean, what I said about the former Soviet Union, Russia, 1917, world's largest export of wheat, 72 years later, world's basket case.
Rhodesia, breadbasket of Africa, Zimbabwe, near starvation.
I'm worried that South Africa is going to spin into that too.
When you start burning and looting the basic building blocks of a modern society, it can't end well.
You're hurting everyone, especially the poorest.
I find that very upsetting.
All right, let me shift out of that.
Let me take some super chats and whatnot.
On SuperU, someone nobody says kicking that guy outside.
What next?
You're talking about that guy kicked off the train.
Yeah, well, and they were physically manhandling, too, and it was a bit of a mob.
You get a bit of a mob like that.
There's no telling what could happen.
You could actually violently hurt him.
Now, what if he fought back?
Is he allowed to fight back?
If he has a mask exemption and has the legal right to be on the train, and a bunch of angry, know-nothing people try and physically throw him off the train, is he within his rights to defend himself?
I think under our criminal law, I think the answer is yes.
You're allowed to use reasonable force to defend yourself.
Not violent force, but I think you are allowed under our law to use reasonable force to defend yourself against violence.
Like, what if he would have punched back?
Those folks are lucky he didn't.
Now, he was outnumbered, but he looked young and strong, and a lot of them looked like middle-aged Karens.
Super you, tip, somebody nobody tipped you.
Thank you for that.
Super you, bird dog, this is the beginning of the end.
Well, I could say that about half the things we talk about on this channel I regret.
Super U tip, Shred tipped 20 bucks.
Well, that is very nice.
Thank you very much.
And a shout out to our friends on SuperU.
As you know, in addition to the YouTube censorship channel, we're on superu.net, rumble.com, and odyssey.com.
All right, we'll come back to more chats from there.
Shout Out to SuperU00:04:44
I want to tell you that in Canada, we've been active in lockdown litigation.
Our fight the fines coordinator, Victoria Solomon, just came back from a well-deserved one-week vacation, so it's great to have her back in the office.
And she got caught up on things.
I said, Victoria, last time you gave me an update, you had 1,834 cases that we were fighting the fines for.
You want to just show our page, fightthefines.com to remind people what we do.
If you've got a lockdown ticket, if you've got a ticket for no mask, for not social distancing, for any one of these infringements, we give you a free lawyer.
Scroll down a little bit.
And you see all these videos there.
UFC fighter faces huge fine, choked by police.
Five adults arrested and charged after not masking in a bookstore.
Like huge fines.
Look at that small town population 165 hotel given a $15,000 COVID fine.
Like, so we've got businesses, we've got churches, Alberta family fined nearly 10 grand for skipping quarantine hotel.
So we help pretty much anybody.
In fact, we really don't have any litmus test.
We don't do a background check on you.
We don't make you answer questions about your political stripe or your religious stripe or where you're like, just if you are someone who got a ticket, we will help you.
Full stop.
So we have taken hundreds.
And when I spoke to Victoria before her vacation, we had 1,834 cases.
She's back.
She caught up that we have two full-time paralegals.
And she tells me, and I'm going to interview her later, that we now have 2,006.
2,006 cases we're helping.
So that's almost 200 new ones in the last like three weeks or month.
So it's actually, I thought it would be slowing down now.
2,006 people we are helping.
And I'm very proud that we are.
In addition to those 2,006 individuals, we have financed some constitutional challenges, some charter challenges in Canada.
And I'm disappointed to say our constitutional challenges and other constitutional challenges by other lawyers and other plaintiffs, they've all failed.
There's probably been a dozen real attempts to stop the lockdowns in different provinces and federally and even on the city level.
I'm unaware of any judge in this country who has made a substantive, substantial decision to say no.
I think there was one Quebec exemption that they tweaked like a tiny thing, and it was just for a very small medical thing.
It's so small, I don't even remember it.
Other than that, I think every single case lost.
Just the judges aren't going to stand up for civil liberties.
And why should they?
No one else is.
The media isn't.
The opposition parties aren't.
The doctors aren't.
Why should a judge?
I know the answer because that's a job.
And that's what they swore to do.
Now, look at Spain, though.
Spain's top court rules the pandemic lockdown is unconstitutional.
The ruling said that the limitations on movement violated citizens' basic rights.
Last year, state-at home lockdown order by the government under a state of emergency was unconstitutional.
Spain's constitutional court has ruled on Wednesday.
The court ruling was in response to a suit filed by the far-right Vox Party.
Yeah, everyone's far-right when you're the independent newspaper.
It was a split decision, according to a brief statement issued by the court.
Six magistrated in favor and five against.
The far-right Vox.
Hang on, is it?
Are you far right if you believe in individual liberty, or are you far right if you believe in the state locking people in their homes?
Imagine saying the civil libertarians who don't want an authoritarian government locking your house, imagine calling them far right.
And it's just we're in an upside-down world.
Let's Get the Pizza Out, Mate00:07:59
That goes to show the media.
Like, look at, like, even in this story on the Supreme Court judges, their six to five split for freedom.
The media is furious about this.
So that's a win.
And I want to show you a video.
Do we have time?
Yeah, I think we have time to play it.
It's six minutes long.
But I watched this video yesterday, and I want to tell you: you know, these are tough days we're in.
These are difficult days.
There's lots of bad news everywhere.
Twitter's the worst.
It just gets me agitated.
But I just saw this video and I started watching it.
And the time flew by.
It didn't feel like six minutes.
And I got to tell you, I actually had a smile on my face the whole time.
It's such a fun video.
It's a happy video.
It's emotionally satisfying.
There's jokes in it.
And I thought I needed this.
And here's Avi Yamini, the thunder down under, who fought a fight the fines case.
And I'm not even including the Australian and the British ones in our 2006, by the way.
Yet in what we're doing in Australia and the UK, where we got even more.
I'll let the story tell itself.
Take a look.
G'day, guys.
Today I got absolutely fantastic news.
I can't wait to share with you.
Remember Rob, who was arrested and charged for being in the wrong place at the wrong time?
Well, Fight the Fines managed to finally get his charges dropped.
But there was one more promise I had to fulfill.
On that day, I never stopped at my pizza.
So that was a bad thing, too.
And I like to eat.
Let's say at the end of this, we'll do a party with Peter and celebrate hopefully what will be a win.
Here we go.
Pizza delivery!
Get out of here, how you doing, mate?
Don't tell you, buddy.
I did make that promise, mate.
Come in, can I?
Yeah, there we go.
How you going?
Good, good, good.
How you feeling today?
Oh, mate.
Fantastic, fantastic news.
You shouldn't have been in the kitchen, eh?
All right, yeah, but it sounds great.
Good on you.
All right, come.
What's going on, boys?
I hope you're hungry.
Yep, all right, mate.
This is for me.
You guys are going to watch me eat, yeah?
All right, lads.
How you feeling?
Oh, mate.
Come, don't stop to talk.
Let's get the pizza out, mate.
Talk to us while you're doing it.
I'm concentrating on the pizza.
You've been waiting a few months for this pizza.
I've had one in between, but this is like the celebration, pizza.
This is the thing that I missed out on the day.
Spilling it every oh well.
Oh, dear.
I love it.
It makes it all worthwhile in the pizza thing.
Is dad still a peanut?
Not anymore.
He's got to win.
People just heard your story.
We only aired it last week.
We filmed it a few weeks ago, but things have been crazy.
So we only got to air it last week.
And a lot of people ask, oh, well, why don't you just put in a letter?
Well, you did.
You put in the review and police doubled down and they said, no, we're going to hold you to account for a crime you didn't commit.
Then we stepped in at fight the fines.
Madeline put in submissions and still the police refused to withdraw.
She went to one mention for you.
Yes.
And then she went to another one on Friday.
And at that one, I think police finally realize if they go forth with this, they're going to lose and they're going to have to pay costs.
So they withdrew it.
Yes.
Yeah.
No, she's done a great job.
You guys, without you, I'd be still wondering what to do.
We missed him in that last time.
No, that's nugget.
Nugget.
Nugget, are you hungry?
Yeah, pretty hungry.
But this is for those that stood up for dad last time.
Where were you when we needed you?
In the toilet.
All right, you earned it.
You've made room.
What would you like to say to everyone who did donate?
Guys, thank you.
Thank you very much.
I saw one comment said, now I've got more than nine friends.
So thanks, guys.
Yeah, love you all.
Thank you.
That piece is good.
Was it worth everything Dad went through?
Madeline did a fantastic job.
And, you know, those people that donate, they're hard-earned money.
And that, you know, I really appreciate.
And I hope this sort of thing stops them from doing it to other people.
I think that's a good point.
I think there's two sides of this.
There's one to show fellow Aussies that don't live in fear of the state controlling you because at the end of the day, there's other Aussies or other people around the world that are going to have your back when the time comes.
But it's also a message to the state going, if you pick on, if you pick people off one by one, we're going to come together collectively and we're going to defend them.
Madeline, she's had a perfect record so far in Victoria.
She's done a good job.
She's really done a good job.
And, you know, you saying that about, you know, people have got my back.
Well, I didn't sort of, you sort of hear about it, but I didn't realise like that until, you know, this came and then some blokes at work said, you know, oh, these are comments because not into Instagram or whatever and all that.
And I said, oh, it's nice of those people to say those things and that.
So, yeah, it's been very pleasing.
Were you guys just in this the whole time for the pizza?
Yeah, absolutely.
Oh, he sort of dished me and I didn't get to be there with him on the day, so it sort of makes up for it.
Go on, eat away, guys.
I'm glad I have my boys like that.
Man, they're good boys.
The biggest problem with them is they're height.
I find it offensive.
But no, they're good lads, and you guys are lucky.
You've got a loving family, and we've got this stress behind us.
Yeah, that's it.
How long you got left with your braces?
A few weeks.
Yeah.
There's nothing I can do about that, mate.
What's your message to these two groups of people to those who have received a fine and are living with that stress?
What would you like to say to them?
Guys, don't give up.
You have good people like this boke here and Madeline and people that I don't even know that support us and we support you.
If it's not financially, it's from the heart.
And we are there for you.
And yeah, we got your back.
And this is all only possible with you guys at home, the viewers, those of you who dig deep into your pockets and donate the more money we raise.
So firethefines.com.au, the more money we raise, the more Aussie battlers we can fight for.
So keep it coming and we'll keep it going.
Can we finish the pizza?
Yeah.
You know, there's so many things about that video that just felt great.
I mean, the banter, I don't know if that kid's name was Nugget or if that's just if that's what you call a smaller person.
Hey, Nugget.
I don't know if that's an Australianism.
You know, I love the phrase bloke.
I got to use bloke a little more.
I say lad and lass, which is a little bit Scottish.
I've got to work bloke into my repertoire bit.
The Aussie, we need more Aussie battlers.
I love that.
An Aussie Battler.
That's great.
You know, Avi's always with the jokes.
You know, look at these tall, your kids are so tall.
I find that offensive.
It's very funny.
People Hate Traveling To Airports00:07:17
Obviously, a deadly serious story, too, that Aussie Battler, the big guy, the dad there, was arrested and charged with a total stitch up.
He was just nearby where there was some protest going on or whatever, and he got charged.
It was complete BS.
So it was a Fight the Fines case.
And the Madeline they're talking about is Madeline Smith, our first Australian lawyer that we retained to fight the fines down under.
And as Avi mentioned, we have a, she has a perfect track record.
Hasn't lost any cases yet.
What's interesting, and we'll get into this on my show on another day when I interview Victoria about our Fight the Fines, is in Canada, and I'm sure in other jurisdictions too, you have the right to a speedy trial.
That is, you can't be charged with an offense today, and they'll get around to it five years from now.
Memories fade, evidence decays, and there's the stigma of even being accused of a crime.
Even if you're completely innocent, not guilty at all, having a charge hang over your head for years is a form of punishment too.
I mean, imagine if you were held on bail, right?
So my point is that these fight the fines cases that we've been taking, we started taking the first ones in April of 2020.
In fact, the very first one was Pastor Arthur Pavlovsky.
And so it May, June, July, so it's 15 months now.
I want to confirm my understanding with a practicing criminal lawyer.
But typically, if there are not cases Proceeded.
If you don't have your case heard in a year and a half, I think that's when you start to get into the point where it's an unreasonable delay.
Now, of course, if it's the defendant that's causing the delays, the law won't throw out the case.
But if it's just the government that slapped everyone with a bunch of tickets and then is lollygagging, I believe that we're going to start seeing cases thrown out by the hundred, maybe by the thousand.
And I'll ask Victoria about this when I interview her later.
But I have to think that this is actually a bit of a strategy by the government.
Ticket everybody with abusive tickets, ridiculous tickets, expensive tickets.
In fact, the worse the behavior, the more impactful because it gets word of mouth going from people saying, oh, don't travel.
You'll have to go to this horrendous quarantine hotel.
Don't go outside.
You'll have this, you'll have these, you know, police will accost you for not wearing a mask or whatever.
Like the worse the behavior, the more unfair, the more illegal, but perhaps the more a deterrent.
I flew for the first time in a while last weekend.
I went to Ted Botfield's 93rd birthday out in Edmonton, so I was on a plane.
And the Toronto Pearson Airport Experience, the biggest airport in Canada, they have a single line now for the entire Terminal 1 domestic.
So like the number one place where people fly around Canada, Toronto's main airport to every other place on Air Canada in Terminal 1, it's big.
That is the busiest place in any airport in Canada.
One line, single file.
Why not two lines?
Why not four?
Well, do they lack the money?
No.
Do they lack the staff?
No.
These aren't, I mean, they're just one person with a little thermometer gun to check your temperature.
And is that a really hard piece of equipment to get?
That thermometer gun?
I mean, it's like 20 bucks at a pharmacy.
So why do they have, like, we're 15 months into the 16 months into the pandemic now, why do they have a single-file line?
I think it's so that everyone has to wait so that people say, I hate flying, I won't do it.
But there's no other reason.
Like, after 9-11, when airport security became airport security theater, it was so invasive and such a hassle.
Over time, airlines and airports surely, I mean, the conversation went something like this: you're going to kill our industry.
Let's at least have more lines and streamline this and make it less abusive.
And I think it took like 10 years for airports to somehow streamline their security because it was just killing travel.
It took all the fun and the convenience out of travel.
You have to get to the airport so early, you have to go through such an invasive procedure.
Here we are a year and a half, and we all have to wait in line for a single thermometer gun person.
That's not by accident.
I just don't believe it is.
I think that is the government saying we want people to hate travel so they don't do it.
We want people to hate going outside so they won't do it.
We want people to hate shopping so they don't do it.
We want people to hate life so they do less of it.
And just to close this idea, when you give out 2006 junk tickets, did you actually really mean to prosecute them all in court?
Or was it just to have 2,006 people spread the word of how awful it is?
And those 2,006 people tell 10 people 20,000.
And maybe those 10 people tell 10 people, 200,000.
Don't go outside.
Don't go to the park.
Don't open your restaurant.
Don't go to church.
Don't go to school.
Don't, So it was bad on purpose.
And if there was someone out there who had so much money that they just paid a $1,500 or $3,000 fine, well, all the better for the government.
They got free money out of it.
You know, most tickets that a cop will give you are a few hundred bucks.
You know, I haven't seen a COVID fine.
You know, standard fine for lockdown is $800 to $1,500 in Canada.
Give Me One Second00:02:42
All right, $12.53.
Let me just check the super chats here.
Super you, Dodo, to make you understand they are your king.
You are under their orders.
Exactly.
I feel really good that we help people.
Like that Ozzy Battler down under.
I mean, I just love that whole thing.
And Aviamini is just such a great, I mean, he's a Rebbe Award winner, you can tell.
Okay, there's not a lot of time left.
There's seven minutes left.
I want to show you a video.
This has been making the rounds out there, so maybe you've seen it, but I really liked it.
Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock in Star Trek for so long, he's an actor, right?
I mean, he's not a philosopher, he's not a scientist, he's not a deep thinker, but because he played Spock, people assumed he was smart.
Do we know if Leonard Nimoy was smart?
I mean, I don't think he was dumb or anything.
This has been making the rounds out there, so maybe you've...
Give me one second on Leonard Nimoy.
He passed away six years ago, so he never had to see what was being done in the name of science.
As he played Spock, give me some feedback here.
I'm just going in his early biography.
Give me one second here.
So was he a scholar?
He took drama classes at Boston College.
Then he basically got into acting right away.
He served in the United States Army Reserve for 18 months.
Okay.
You know, Army Special Services, putting on shows, which he wrote, narrated, and MC'd.
Okay, so he was an entertainer in the military.
I respect that, by the way.
And in no way do I disrespect someone who entertains the troops.
I mean, Irving Berlin, you probably know the guy who wrote White Christmas and God Bless America.
And did you ever hear, I hate to get up, I hate to get up, I hate to get up in the morning.
Do you know that song, Justin?
No?
He basically created modern entertainment for soldiers.
I think he served in World War I, if I'm not mistaken.
And then after that, he just put on shows for the forces.
I can't think of anything more patriotic.
So Leonard Nimoy basically went to drama school and then he joined the army as an entertainment.
And by the way, I think that's very patriotic.
And I salute his service.
But Leonard Nimoy is not a scholar.
Ice Ages Debunked00:04:15
He's not a scientist.
He's not a climatologist.
Everyone thinks he's smart because he plays Spock.
That was a character.
That was a role.
He's not actually a Vulcan.
But the thing about that is when he says something, and he's got those great eyes, right?
He's got that great sound everyone associates with Spock.
When he says something, he sounds smart because the character that made him famous, really the only character.
Do you know any other character Leonard Nimoy played besides?
No, no one does.
You know, I'm sure he did.
Let me just, you know.
Other work after Star Trek here.
So he was, you know, he did some voice acting, which is a good idea.
Hosted some kids' shows.
But let's be honest, I don't think one in 100 people could name anything he did besides Star Trek and Star Trek spin-offs, which is fine.
It was one of the most successful things you can imagine.
He ain't a scientist, but he sure is useful for people who want to scare you with something sciencey.
Take a look at this and look how wrong it was.
The data shows that average temperatures in the Arctic have fallen dramatically over the last 30 years.
In most locations, the drop has been about two degrees centigrade.
At that rate, the descent to ice age temperatures could take less than 200 years.
It is not only the lonely Arctic that has cooled.
The whole northern hemisphere is growing steadily colder.
There is little doubt that someday the ice will return.
At least eight times in the past million years, it has advanced and retreated with clockwork regularity.
If we are unprepared for the next advance, the result could be hunger and death on a scale unprecedented in all of history.
What scientists are telling us now is that the threat of an ice age is not as remote as they once thought.
During the lifetime of our grandchildren, Arctic cold and perpetual snow could turn most of the inhabitable portions of our planet into a polar desert.
That was never true.
That's obviously not come true.
But it was never true.
It is true that over the course of history, the world has warmed and cooled and warmed and cooled.
That is natural.
You've heard of the ice ages, right?
I mean, we are actually coming out of the last ice age.
10,000 years ago, most of Canada was covered in a kilometer of ice.
It's been retreating.
They've been retreating ever since.
You know, I was up there in Tuck to Yuktuk, which is the north, very, very far north.
It's on the Arctic Ocean, the Beaufort Seas, it's called, 10,000 or 1,000 people.
There are petrified forests up there.
Oh, same in Antarctica, too, by the way.
Antarctica, almost completely uninhabitable.
I mean, there's penguins and not much else down there.
The poles did not have snow on them.
So we're still actually emerging from the last ice age.
And if you know that things were covered in ice and they're not now, then you know that, and if you know that's happened more than once before, you know that there's a natural cycle.
But it happens so slowly and so gradually.
I guess what I'm saying is even if we did go back into a little ice age or come out of a little ice age, it happens so gradually and so slowly that his whole fear-mongering, oh my God, your grandchildren will live in a polar desert, that just no, never, just lying hype, global colding, global warming, global, you know,
Facebook's Misinformation Battle00:05:05
I don't know what the angle was 30 years ago when that 40 years ago when that was recorded, but I think we should, at least Leonard Nimoy, you could look at him and say, well, Spock said that.
What's the excuse for listening to Greta Tunberg?
Well, would you look at that?
It's 1 p.m.
And we didn't even talk about the subject that is the headline on today's video.
Jen Sackey talking about Facebook and misinformation.
I think we ought to play that clip just because we did promise it in the headline.
I will do my show on this tonight.
So at 8 p.m. you can tune in and see more.
Here's Jen Sacke, Joe Biden's spokesman, just saying the quiet part out loud that they direct Facebook to boost certain voices and throttle others.
Take a listen.
I think this was a question asked before.
There's about 12 people who are producing 65% of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms.
All of them remain active on Facebook, despite some even being banned on other platforms, including Facebook, ones that Facebook owns.
Third, it's important to take faster action against harmful posts.
As you all know, information travels quite quickly on social media platforms.
Sometimes it's not accurate.
And Facebook needs to move more quickly to remove harmful violative posts.
Posts that will be within their policies for removal often remain up for days.
That's too long.
The information spreads too quickly.
Finally, we have proposed they promote quality information sources in their feed algorithm.
Facebook has repeatedly shown that they have the leverage to promote quality information.
We've seen them effectively do this in their algorithm over low quality information, and they've chosen not to use it in this case.
And that's certainly an area that would have an impact.
So these are certainly the proposals.
We engage with them regularly, and they certainly understand what our asks are.
You know, in Canada, imagine if Stephen Harper told the tech companies what to censor and what to boost.
Imagine if Donald Trump told them to.
Well, they would have laughed at him.
But here, Jen Sacke, the president's right-hand woman, says we're telling them to promote quality information.
And we've made our proposals known to them.
And they need to move against harmful posts.
Not illegal, nothing illegal, just what the politicians don't like.
And other than conservative pundits, just nothing.
Just yeah.
Everyone assumes that Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, they're all on the Biden team, so of course they're going to comply.
Why is that even news?
I think things are going to get worse before they get better.
I think the answer lies in some part with the governors of the states, Ron DeSantis, Governor Abbott in Texas.
I don't even think the congressional Republicans have it in them.
Trump had the Congress with Republican majorities for the first two years of his term.
He didn't do anything with it.
And frankly, his lawsuit that he's filed in the last few weeks.
All right, thanks for that.
But where were you when you were president?
And you didn't have to file a lawsuit.
You could have filed an executive order.
You could have launched an investigation, an investigation into illegal cartels and trusts.
And you could have reformed Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the rule that basically has given great immunity to these tech companies.
I'm glad, I suppose, that he's doing a lawsuit now.
I haven't read the lawsuit and I don't know the caliber of the lawyers.
I know there were some really weak lawyers who said some really crazy things on Trump's behalf in November, December, and January after the election loss.
And I hope it's not that same cockamame stuff.
But even if it weren't, my answer is: where were you for four years?
Hopefully, Ron DeSantis will do better.
I sure hope he continues to be a champion for freedom and a bulwark against these things.
All right, my friends, it's 1.04 p.m.
What a pleasure to be here with you.
Tune in tonight at 8 p.m.
I'm going to talk more about Jen Saki and her war on press freedom.
I was going to say her war against Facebook, but Facebook isn't fighting back.
They love this.
They are really an auxiliary of the Democrats, so they're just taking their instructions publicly now rather than privately.
Do we have a dog video today?
Indeed, we do.
I'll say goodbye to you now and leave you with a dog video curated by our friend Justin.