Ezra Levant exposes Michael Bloomberg’s inflation advice as elitist, mocking his $300K+ focus while critiquing Canada’s carbon tax hikes and Trudeau’s refusal to supply Europe with oil. Rachel Emmanuel reveals iPolitics’ editorial interference on Chrystia Freeland’s Nazi-linked scarf story, linking government funding to media bias. The Freedom Convoy’s flags—Confederation and Nazi—were suspiciously staged by photographers like Dave Chang and Justin Ling, with no police action despite the hotel being a command center; Trudeau weaponized these images to justify crackdowns, proving media and politics collude to control narratives. [Automatically generated summary]
Today I'm going to do a deep dive into Michael Bloomberg.
There's a name that you probably wouldn't have thought you'd hear again.
He ran briefly for the Democratic presidential primary in 2020, spent a billion dollars but got crushed.
Well, you know, he's enjoying himself running Bloomberg, and he came up with some great advice for you poors on how to cope with inflation.
It's just gorgeous.
I'll read it for you, and I'll try and put it in context of the larger be poor and be happy ideology.
Before I do, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
That's the video version of this podcast.
Just go to RebelNewsPlus.com, click subscribe, eight bucks a month, no big deal, but it's a big deal to us because we survive on that money.
We don't take any money from Trudeau.
We just survive on your subscriptions.
So please go to RebelNewsPlus.com.
You get my daily show plus weekly shows from four other teams here at Rebel News.
There's a lot to watch.
All right, here's today's podcast.
Tonight, the media party gives you advice on how to handle inflation and the poverty that comes from it.
It's March 21st, and this is the Azure Land Show.
Why should others go to jail when you're the biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here, and you don't give them an answer.
The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
Why Height Matters00:06:01
You know this little guy, right?
5'4.
One of the few people who makes me feel tall, according to Forbes, his net worth is $82 billion.
That's a pretty tall stack of bills.
I'm married, but men say it's tough finding a date if you're short, and some say that if you're bald too.
Though I think that a lot of women are fine with that, I've never met a woman who is fine with a guy being shorter than them.
Of course, money makes up for it, doesn't it?
Jeffrey Bezos, the second richest man in the world, has embraced his baldness, but the Daily Mail thinks he has had a lot of plastic surgery done to his face.
I think they're right.
It looks like it.
And he's obviously working out too.
But you don't really need plastic surgery when you're worth about $150 billion, do you?
Same thing with Mike Bloomberg, the man I showed you earlier.
That's him in the middle next to Donald Trump.
Trump used to call him Minnie Mike.
Boy, Trump was funny and sharp with the nicknames, wasn't he?
He loved to make fun of Bloomberg and the fact that Bloomberg's campaign for president requested that he be able to stand on a box on the stage at the presidential debate so he didn't look short compared to the other candidates.
I don't know if you remember, but Bloomberg spent about a billion dollars running the Democratic presidential primaries, and he didn't move the needle at all.
Here's a fun Trump quip.
Look at this.
He's so funny.
But she was really mean to Minnie Mike.
I'll tell you, the way she treated him, he didn't know what hit him.
He's going, oh, get me off of this stage.
Get me off!
If you're wondering why I am making fun of Bloomberg and Bezos for things about them that they don't control, like being short, Bezos for being bald, forgive me.
I know it's not fair, pot calling the kettle black, but it's one of the few things you can do to express your disagreement with these oligarchs who rule over you.
They really are oligarchs.
Why do Russian and Ukrainian billionaires who like to meddle in politics, which they all do, why are they called oligarchs, but we don't use that sinister term to describe our own political billionaire class, like Bill Gates or the billionaires here in Canada?
Do you know who even owns The Globe and Mail?
It's owned by the richest family in the country, the Thompsons.
Why are they never scrutinized?
And if they are, only in the most deferential tones.
Anyways, Minnie Mike knows what single men trying to get a date know for every inch you are below average height, you'd better be earning, I don't know, an extra 20 grand a year or 50 grand a year to make up for it.
This is sort of an amazing picture.
If Jay Howard Marshall wasn't a billionaire, how likely is it that the late Guess Jeans model, Anna Nicole Smith, would have married him?
Here's how Bloomberg himself described it when boasting to journalists about how awesome he is.
He said, I like theater, dining, and chasing women.
Let me put it this way.
I am a single straight billionaire in Manhattan.
What do you think?
It's a wet dream.
It's funny, Donald Trump from time to time talked like that locker room talk.
But I wonder why Trump was assailed for it forever, almost derailed his campaign.
But it was pretty much ignored when Bloomberg said the same thing.
I wonder if it had anything to do with the fact that Bloomberg is a Democrat.
I mean, of course, they would ignore that kind of sexual boasting.
If you're a single man, being a serial dater, it's not illegal, it's not criminal, and depending on your taste, it might not even be immoral.
I mean, if they give oligarch Bill Gates a pass for having been a close friend with Jeffrey Epstein, the child rapist and pimp, of course, they're going to forgive Mike Bloomberg.
You know, it was also widely reported that Bill had a friendship or business or some kind of contact with Jeffrey Epstein and that you were not, that that was very upsetting to you.
Did that play a role in the divorce at all in this process?
Yeah, as I said, it's not one thing.
It was many things.
But I did not like that he'd had meetings with Jeffrey Epstein, though.
Then you made that clear to him.
I made that clear to him.
I also met Jeffrey Epstein exactly one time.
Did you?
Yes, because I wanted to see who this man was.
And I regretted it from the second I stepped in the door.
He was abhorrent.
He was evil personified.
I had nightmares about it afterwards.
So, you know, my heart breaks for these young women because that's how I felt.
And here I'm an older woman.
My God, I feel terrible for those young women.
It was awful.
You felt that the moment you walked in.
I didn't hear it awful.
Yeah.
And you shared that with Bill, and he still continued to spend time with him?
Any of the questions remaining about what Bill's relationship there was, those are for Bill to answer.
Okay.
But I made it very clear how I felt about him.
Yeah, and Bill Gates is still quoted on TV as if he's normal.
So why am I poking at these people with mean, even childish insults about being short?
Well, because they're mean to you and me.
Much worse, of course.
Germany's Oil and Gas Dilemma00:12:50
Look at this.
This is an editorial published by Bloomberg.
That's the media company named after Mike Bloomberg that has so enriched him.
It's what gave him the money to chase women all over Manhattan and to run for president in a vanity campaign.
Here's what Michael Bloomberg's news company published about how to deal with inflation, which is eroding your paycheck.
Prices are skyrocketing for everything: gasoline, food, cars, houses, pretty much anything.
Here's Minnie Mike's advice to you: Inflation stings most if you earn less than $300,000.
Here's how to deal: take the bus.
Don't buy in bulk.
Try lentils instead of meat.
Nobody said this would be fun.
Hey guys, if you're one of the poorers earning less than $300,000, that's U.S. dollars.
So it's just a shade under $400,000 Canadian.
If you're one of the poorers, here's some friendly advice from Mike Bloomberg, net worth $82 billion.
So let's take that advice line by line.
Take the bus.
I love it.
Now, there are some places where you can actually take a bus, but do you think Mike Bloomberg has ever taken a bus in his life?
Take the bus.
So double your time in traffic wherever you're going in your life.
In no situation is taking a bus ever faster than taking a car.
We probably add an hour to the day of an average person, but how do you take the bus when, I don't know, you're carpooling with your kids to the hockey arena with your big hockey bags?
How do you take the bus when you're going shopping for groceries at Costco or, you know, people in country places where they don't have public transport?
Or, you know, truck drivers who bring us all of our stuff, like our food, or I don't know, farmers whose tractors and combines really can't be replaced with a bus.
But thanks.
But how would Minnie Mike even know?
He never takes a bus other than an Airbus.
Look at this.
In three years as mayor, he took nearly a thousand private jet flights to Bermuda, to Florida, to London, wherever.
That's pretty much a private jet flight per day.
This is a guy who says he's really worried about you driving so much because you're causing global warming, just so you know.
Don't buy in bulk is their second piece of advice, even though that's typically how people might save money by buying in bulk, but just buy enough to live for the day.
Maybe you'll rent.
I love this next one.
Try lentils instead of meat, really.
I like a nice lentil hamburger for lunch, and then when I get home, a nice thick lentil steak for dinner.
Medium rare, delish.
You know, lentils.
I mean, in North Korea, they die for that.
I checked.
Turns out the price of lentils has actually doubled in the past year.
So this advice for the poorers is not quite as helpful as you might think.
But it's not meant to be helpful.
It's meant to normalize you being poor and miserable and accepting it like they lived under the former Soviet Union, rationing all the time, dreary and grey.
Seriously, I'm surprised they didn't go straight for their fetish of promoting people eating bugs.
They're so weird about that.
Here's the World Economic Forum.
They're just so gross.
This London insect farm is changing the way we eat.
I'm gagging just reading that.
Here's another one.
Why we need to give insects the role they deserve in our food systems?
Oh my God.
Getting nauseous.
I'm gagging just thinking about this.
I'm going to skip this next one, but you can see they're really pushing for bugs to be on the menu in restaurants.
Nobody said this would be fun.
That's Paris Hilton there, the heiress wearing a shirt saying, stop being poor.
She later claimed the photo had been photoshopped.
She didn't say that, she claims.
It could be, could be.
I think the reason the fake Photoshop version resonated so much is because that's really how she lives.
Even if the words, she doesn't say the words, stop being poor, she exudes that sentiment.
But really, how is any of that different from our very, very smart people whose advice to poor people who can barely afford to fill up their gas tanks in their old beater?
Well, duh, just buy a new Tesla.
I mean, hello.
They'll start at, what, 60 grand for the most basic model in Canada?
Clean transportation can bring significant cost savings for the American people as well.
Last month, we announced a $5 billion investment to build out a nationwide electric vehicle charging network so that people from rural to suburban to urban communities can all benefit from the gas savings of driving an EV.
I mean, seriously, just stop being poor.
That's the advice.
They're going to make you poor, by the way.
I don't know if you know this, but in Canada, they're jacking up the carbon tax again on April Fool's Day, just an extra 11 cents a liter.
Just stop being poor already, people.
But they're taking care of themselves.
Don't you worry, every year on the same day, MPs and senators give themselves an automatic pay raise, no matter how crummy they are, no matter how disastrous they are, no matter that Parliament has barely sat these last two years.
Pay raise is all around.
Some Conservative MPs claimed that they planned to give their pay raise to charity.
Do you believe they actually did?
But I want you to know and to really understand in your bones that they want inflation, that they want prices to go higher, that they want prices to be so high you become poor, especially energy poor, because they say that.
That's their whole rationale for carbon taxes, or as they call it, pricing carbon.
It's to make energy painful to use.
That feeling you get at the gas pump, that feeling of dread of how can I make ends meet, that's what they want.
It's social engineering.
Here's how the Global Mail put it.
Stefan Dion called it the green shift when he ran on it in 2008.
He was a klutz and Harper devoured him, but now it's the law.
Who had the last laugh there?
Here's Trudeau, just a few months ago, saying he wants to reduce the amount of oil and gas, make it scarce, make it more expensive.
This is Stefan Dion with a better haircut.
We're going to keep moving forward at home.
On emissions, we've committed to put a cap and begin to cut emissions from oil and gas production.
We're the first major oil and gas producing nation to do that.
We've committed to reduce methane emissions by at least 30% by 2030, and in particular, reduce oil and gas methane emissions by 75% by 2030.
On electricity, we've committed to phasing out coal-fired electricity by 2030.
We're going to ensure that all new vehicle sales are zero-emission vehicles and that we have a net zero grid by 2035.
This is something we've said a number of times and people have remarked upon here at COP, that we're not just saying we need to move forward as a world, we ought to do things.
Canada is showing that we are doing things.
We're making big decisions at home and encouraging people around the world to do more as well.
All right, I'm going to stop that there.
But he's saying he wants to eliminate oil and gas, or at least Canadian oil and gas.
And He wants to let the world's demand for oil and gas be met by OPEC and Russia.
Well, we see how that works with Russia.
They're using their near monopoly of oil and gas in Europe to take Europe hostage.
How could Germany possibly take a tough stand against Russia when it imports about 40% of its energy from Gazprom, the Russian company?
Germany cannot put sanctions on Russia.
Frankly, it better be careful that Russia doesn't put sanctions on Germany.
Imagine if Putin cut off German gas with the flip of a switch.
That's where Canada could come in as a purveyor of ethical oil and gas.
Germany raised that in a face-to-face meeting with Trudeau the other day.
Did you know that?
But Trudeau turned them down.
Here, here's the official readout from the Prime Minister's website.
Prime Minister Trudeau met with German Chancellor Olaf Schultz.
Together, the leaders discussed and coordinated next steps to counter Russia's ongoing and accelerating aggression against Ukraine.
The leaders also committed to strengthening bilateral cooperation to enhance trade, fight climate change, and build clean economies with good jobs, including through the transition to clean energy.
Oh, I thought they needed help with oil and gas to replace the Russian oil and gas and coal also.
No, here's what Trudeau talked to them about.
To combat climate change and accelerate the transition toward a clean energy future, Canada and Germany will deepen collaboration on carbon pollution pricing, energy and critical minerals through the high-level steering group on bilateral cooperation.
The leaders mutually recognized each country's leadership in carbon pricing through the Global Carbon Pricing Challenge on Carbon and the Climate Club, respectively, and agreed to collaborate for the broader adoption of pollution pricing in an upcoming multilateral fora.
Oh, so the only fighting they're doing, not fighting Russia, they're fighting global warming.
And they're providing all assistance to Ukraine short of help.
You know, we're sitting on the world's third largest oil reserves with Venezuela and Saudi Arabia being in first and second place, but Trudeau won't open up the taps, even though Germany could use it, all of Europe could use it, because Trudeau wants to force people off oil and gas.
You heard him.
He wants to go harder on carbon pricing.
He's actually still talking about that, which is what the carbon tax is designed to do, to make oil and gas too expensive to actually buy.
They want Germany to be dependent on Russia, and they want you to be poor.
This is the World Economic Forum's video from a few years back.
It's all happening.
Reset.
You'll own nothing.
You can't afford a home.
You can't afford gas.
You can't afford meat to eat.
Hey, nobody said it would be fun, but that's your lot in life.
If Minnie Mike and Justin Trudeau say so themselves.
Stay with us for more.
Welcome back.
Well, I use the phrase media party.
You've probably heard me say that for years now.
Another way I've heard it spoken is the media political industrial complex, an homage to Eisenhower's warning about the military industrial complex.
Christia Freeland's Media Critique00:15:04
And then, of course, there's the term I see sometimes on Twitter, Justin Journos, in reference to those media who take bailouts from Justin Trudeau's government.
And, you know, it's an accusation, it's a speculation, it's an interpretation, but is it real?
Is there any pressure from the Prime Minister's office or the Liberal government in any way to companies that take those bailouts to maybe tailor their coverage a little bit?
Is there a quid pro quo?
If you take money from Justin Trudeau, do you have to do what he says?
Our next guest might have an opinion on that subject.
She used to work for iPolitics, a subsidiary of the Toronto Star that receives government funds.
Now she works for Western Standard Online, which does not.
How did that move happen?
Joining us now via Skype from Ottawa is Rachel Emmanuel.
What a pleasure to meet you.
Thanks for joining us today.
Yeah, absolutely.
Happy to be here.
Well, I saw you reporting at iPolitics.
And iPolitics, correct me if I'm wrong, it used to be independent.
Then it was acquired by the Toronto Star.
So it has sort of an establishment point of view.
It's more a political subsidiary of Toronto Star that's really focused on Ottawa.
And it doesn't have sports.
It doesn't have weather.
It doesn't have traffic.
It's just, it's for people who want a heavy dose of politics.
Is that a good summary?
Why don't you describe iPolitics from your point of view?
Absolutely.
It's for people that are in the know in Ottawa, and it largely focuses on public policy.
Got it.
So It's for political junkies who just love it.
Now, my take on it is that they're actually sort of fair.
I mean, they give coverage to rebel news every week.
They do a little summary of us, and I don't mind it one bit.
I mean, a lot of other media just do nothing but ignore us or shoot at us.
So I have a bit of a soft spot for iPolitics.
But you actually worked in the bosom of that company.
Tell me what caused you to leave iPolitics and to join the Western standard, which is very flavorful.
It's very independent and freedom-oriented.
Why don't you say it in your own words?
What caused you to change paths?
Absolutely.
So the biggest problem for me happened sort of throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
We saw so many government restrictions and really unprecedented level of a curtailment of civil liberties.
And this was something that caught my attention.
It was something I was concerned about.
And it was also something that Canadians I was speaking to were concerned about.
And I noticed that the media wasn't really covering this.
We also saw a lot of health outcomes across the board go down, but there was so much focus just on case numbers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic when we saw opioid-related death spike and we saw suicide rate spike and depression spike even in youth.
So these were things that I was all paying attention to, and I was just wondering why the coverage of this wasn't adding up.
So these were the types of stories I was trying to write at iPolitics throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
And I experienced quite a bit of pushback from my editorial team, largely my editors, who said, you know, there's not a lot of people in Canada who are against, you know, vaccine mandates.
And we don't think that you should be giving so much attention and so much coverage to basically how much our civil liberties are being curtailed.
So that really bothered me because I knew that there was a broad swath of Canadians who were very upset about these measures and I wanted to do something about it.
And then of course, as I was sort of making, putting motions in play to move, then my Christia Freeland article was heavily edited and I was not given permission to review the changes before they were made.
I only saw the changes that were made to words that were being published under my name after it was changed and updated on the site.
And it was at that point that I knew I could no longer write any other articles for iPolitics.
Got it.
Well, let's break those two things because those are two very different things.
Let's talk about the vax one first.
I mean, I don't know how many Canadians are for and against the vaccine.
I mean, there are some polls.
One thing I do know is that when Justin Trudeau or others say 90% of Canadians agree, I don't think that's accurate because a lot of people got the jab under some sort of duress.
If they didn't, they would be suspended or fired from their job.
If they didn't, they would be kicked out of university or they would just be shunned in the public square, not allowed to go to restaurants, not allowed to fly.
So I don't know if we know how big or small the I don't even want to use the word anti-vaccine.
Like someone who just makes a choice not to get a particular vaccine may not be an anti-vaxxer.
Maybe they just got the coronavirus and recovered naturally.
So they say, well, why would I get an artificial vaccine if I'm immune?
But my point is, it may be a small number.
It may be 10%.
But if you violate the civil liberties of 10% of the population, it's still a huge scandal.
The thing about civil liberties is it's for minorities.
You know, the vast majority of people, if they're, you know, the establishment, if they're in power, they really don't need the protection of civil liberties because they're dominant.
Civil liberties are always for smaller groups.
That just sounds like an odd excuse not to cover the violation of civil liberties because it's just happening to a few people.
Did you have what kind of conversations?
And again, I don't want you to break any confidence that you don't feel you want to talk about publicly, but how were you advised of this?
Were you pitching stories that were rejected?
Were they just sort of arguing with you internally?
How did they say, no, we're not going to cover this?
So I did pitch a couple stories and actually started writing a couple stories that were rejected.
Those ones were largely more science-y-based stories.
So obviously throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we had some credible doctors come out and disagree with basically the government narrative and the government science, which for a period of time seemed to be changing every other week.
Basically those types of stories I wasn't allowed to write just because they didn't want to get into the weeds on the science.
And, you know, there's some issues there with journalists these days are kind of spread too thin.
You don't have experts in as many areas as you used to.
But then in other areas, I would just see really heavy editing on my work to sort of change the editorial tone that I had presented.
As well, I was actually asked at one point, I was basically sat down and said, you need to stop covering these issues.
We don't think that this is appropriate to be covering them.
We don't think that there's very many Canadians who are concerned about the vaccine mandates and the lockdowns that we're seeing.
We don't understand why you're giving them such a loud voice throughout this period.
So we would prefer it if you just stopped covering it and turned your attention to something else.
It's so strange.
I can't think of a bigger story over the last two years than the vaccine mandates and those who have questions.
I mean, really, it's the biggest story of the century.
To say that you should move on seems odd to me.
Now, you did mention another thing.
I mean, I agree with you.
Most media in the country were cheerleading big pharma and big government.
I mean, until recently, I think most media were skeptical of big pharma, I think.
But boy, were they cheerleaders?
But you said a very specific thing after we talked about the vaccines, after you mentioned vaccines.
You talked about a Christia Freeland article that was altered.
It sounds like your work was altered without consulting you, even though it went out over your name.
It sounds like that happened sort of often.
But why don't you tell our viewers about the story you did?
I'd call it maybe the straw that broke the camel's back.
What was the story that you wrote about Christia Freeland that really burst the bubble here?
Sure.
So Christy Freeland was at a pro-Ukraine rally a couple weekends ago, and there were some demonstrators there, including some who were carrying some red and black flags that were associated with the Stefan Bandera movement.
And he was basically a Nazi collaborator during World War II.
He was responsible for the murders of, you know, probably thousands of Jews.
And she was photographed with this sign, and she had posted it actually to her social media account.
And then when people started commenting on the fact that this banner is associated with the Bandera movement, she quickly deleted it and posted a new photo and offered no explanation.
So media, True North, was the first to pick up on this, started writing about it.
I covered the story.
I explained the sort of muddled history of the scarf, that it had been associated with Nazis and it's now been repurposed by neo-Nazis.
And, you know, to her credit, not everyone is familiar about this banner and what it means.
Certainly, I wasn't aware of what it meant until I started writing the article.
And I explained in the article, not everyone knows what it means.
Certainly, it seems like Christia Freeland herself would have understood the history of the banner because she is such an expert on Ukraine.
And after my article was written, Christopher Freeland's office called my editor.
So the evening after my article was done, I was walking home from work and I got a call from an editor saying, Christia Freeland's office just called me.
They're not happy with the editorial framing of your article and they would like to make some changes.
And I sort of explained what the story was and I said I stood by my reporting.
And a couple hours later, I got another call saying that changes had been made.
So at that point, I quickly went online to see the changes that were made.
And I did not agree with them.
And as I mentioned, I did not even have prior knowledge of them or get to consent to them or agree to them.
Now, what were the changes?
Because it sounds like you acknowledge that, you know, maybe not everyone would know who Stefan Bandera is.
And I agree with you.
I mean, Christia Freeland is so deeply rooted in Ukrainian history and politics.
And by the way, it's appropriate to mention, especially in this case, that her own grandfather was a Nazi propagandist.
He published a pro-Nazi newspaper during the Second World War.
So the idea that she wouldn't know who Stefan Bandera is stretches the credulity.
It sounds like you saying you acknowledged that maybe everyone didn't know that.
So it sounds like you had a few wiggle words in there.
You weren't implying that she knew and made a conscious choice.
You're just showing that it happened and that she deleted the evidence of it without comment.
So it sounds like you were just doing factual reporting.
Was there anything in particular that your editors or Christia Freeland's office took issue with?
Was there a factual error that they said you made?
Sure.
So these were the big things that were sort of the points of contention.
The word neo-Nazis was completely removed from the article.
Any reference of it was taken out of the article.
They also sort of worded down the article to make it seem like Freeland had been pictured with this scarf that had colors that were also at times associated with the Bandera movement.
But it was more than just that.
There was, you know, a slogan on the scarf and there was also an emblem there.
And the other thing was also that her office was really upset about was the word of the use banner.
So when I had first written the article, I had used the words banner and the word scarf interchangeably because it's a scarf that's being used as a banner.
Three people are holding it up, including Freeland, and walking throughout the crowd.
So I'd use the words interchangeably and then my copy editor comes to me and says, well, don't use it interchangeably, like, which is it?
So I explained to her how it was being used, and she says, no, no, that's not a scarf, that's a banner.
So we made the decision to use the word as a banner.
So any references to the word banner or sign were also removed from the article and a correction was put at the bottom saying that it was in fact a scarf.
And then the last thing was that I had spoken to an expert, a Ukrainian expert, just to kind of get the whole context of the scarf, because as I mentioned, I was not familiar with its history prior to writing the article, and I assumed that many of my writers wouldn't be, readers rather.
So I talked to this expert and I got kind of a sense of what the scarf meant and even explained that, you know, not everyone really knew what it was about.
And so I gave him a lot of airtime at the bottom.
But it is worth noting that he was a friend of Chris de Freelance.
Unfortunately, he was the only expert I could get on the phone.
I only had about an hour to write the story.
So I had a pretty quick turnaround.
But, you know, I included that his comments, but I also included that he was a friend of Chris de Freeland.
And after the article was published, my editor actually went to him and allowed him to basically post-edit the article.
So he read it and then he told the changes that he would have made to it.
And she made those changes, which I thought was pretty unethical because you shouldn't do that with a source in general.
But you also had to take everything he was saying with a grain of salt because he was a friend of Chris Dia Freelance.
And he even was critical of me writing the story.
He said, I don't know if we should give the story any oxygen.
You know, people in Ukraine are dying.
Is this really the conversation that we want to be having?
And I even included that comment in my article.
So I felt like I really went to great lengths to give him enough airtime to air his concerns and to really accurately and thoroughly get his points across.
And then for it still to be edited afterwards, I thought was absolutely wrong.
I got to tell you, it sounds like you did some good journalism.
You reported the story as you saw it.
You got an expert.
You consulted with your own editor.
It sounds like you, especially given the haste with which you, you know, the news breaks, you have to get that story out.
I saw the picture and it was a scarf being used as a banner.
I don't know if a lot turns on that.
But the fact that they memory hold this whole story shows they're hypersensitive to it.
And again, I think a lot of it is because Christia Freeland has the historical tie to her grandfather, obviously.
But more importantly, Christia Freeland and this liberal government have been supporting the neo-Nazi Adzov battalion in Ukraine.
So I think that they're just trying to kill any stories that shine a light on it.
But I got to tell you, Rachel, if any politician called us up and said, change that story, oh, we would change it all right to add their attempts to interfere, metal, and censor.
So yeah, I mean, if some minister would call us up, I mean, if we got a fact wrong, of course we would fix the fact and we would make a little editor's known.
But the fact that Christia Freeland was calling you and surely calling around anyone else and trying to edit and getting editors to accept that, that is huge and shocking news.
And I don't think it's unrelated to the fact that iPolitics and the Toronto Star and 99% of the media in this country are on the dole.
They take money from Christia Freeland and Justin Trudeau.
So when Christy Freeland calls up and says, delete that embarrassing story or change it, they obey.
That's how it looks to me.
Is that how it looks to you?
Honestly, conversations about what is had to ensure that the government continues to give us money is sort of above my pay grade.
I never really wanted to have to worry about those types of things.
I really just wanted to do good reporting.
Certainly, what I will say is what we learned from the WeCharity scandal is that even the appearance of a conflict adventurist is problematic.
So absolutely, we have a problem with the media in this country taking money from the government.
And then when we have situations like this, it exacerbates it.
So whether there's a direct correlation there, it's hard to say that there wouldn't be.
It definitely seems like there was.
But as I said, that is a bit above my pay grade.
I really just wanted to be a reporter and kind of got pulled into this, unwittingly.
Well, it's an incredible story, and I thank you for telling it.
And I'm glad you're with the Western Standard Online.
You know, 15 years ago, I was involved with the print version of that magazine called Western Standard.
So it's a delight to see that the online version has been reborn and is alive and kicking.
And I look forward to watching your news there.
Thanks so much for taking the time and joining us today and telling us the story.
Absolutely.
Thank you for having me.
Right on, my pleasure.
There you have it.
Rachel Emmanuel, formerly of iPolitics, now with Western Standard Online.
People Love Being Controlled00:03:04
Stay with us.
More ahead.
Someone named Bunny Blackwell says Ezra is 100% correct here.
And it's crucial that the old guard get familiar with this.
I hate the dependence on media tech too, but it is the new theater of war.
And if we want to win, we have to understand it.
You're talking about seeing the world through those VR goggles, that every single aspect is controlled.
You know, Alex Jones has his channel called InfoWars, and his tagline is, there's a battle on for your mind.
He is so correct in that.
I feel like, you know, Facebook really commercialized that.
When you're not paying for a service, when you're not paying for Facebook, it's because you yourself are the product being sold.
Allison Coyne says, as a woman, this makes me so angry.
Talk about the elephant in the room.
The real women in the race should boycott the competition.
Without competitors, the nonsense would stop.
You're talking, of course, about Leah Thomas just crushing the women in that swim meet.
You know, I learned that Leah Thomas still has his twig and berries, his meat and two veg.
In fact, he still dates women.
But he just goes and just crushes the girls.
And not just their swimming records, but their dreams, really.
You know, maybe it's too much to ask the girls themselves to fight back, but how about their dads and brothers?
And how about the rest of us?
How can we look on in this?
I find it very bizarre.
Someone with a nickname Second Chance says, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities.
Think Aldous Huxley.
That is exactly right.
And we see that in Ontario today, the masks mandates have been dropped.
And people love it.
People love the masks, I mean.
There are so many people who refuse to give them up.
You know what?
I've heard it said that some long-term criminals, when they're done serving their very lengthy prison sentence, hate to leave prison.
They have come to love the, if not the bars in prison, the heavily regulated, proceduralized life where you have no responsibility, really.
Someone feeds you, someone tells you what to do, when to do, where to go.
Some people, so it is said, love that so much they don't want to leave, they don't want to be let go, and on rare occasions they actually reoffend so they can go back to jail.
They love the feeling of being controlled.
There are some people like that.
And I think there are people who love being told how to think, what to do, what to wear, who to meet, as long as they're made to feel like they're on the team or they're doing something for the public safety.
Locked Nazi Flag Incident00:15:09
I don't know.
It's interesting times afoot.
That's a show for today.
Until tomorrow, let me leave you with this video of the day from Alexa on the backstory of some inappropriate signs spotted during the final day, first days rather, of the Freedom Convoy.
Alexa made a bit of an investigation into it.
I'll let you watch that video now until tomorrow on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters to you at home.
Good night.
Keep fighting for freedom.
For nearly four weeks, the Convoy for Freedom demonstration was one of the largest human rights demonstrations the country have ever seen.
And yet, it remained perfectly peaceful, at least from the side of the protester.
The Convoy for Freedom to Ottawa grew from a trucker protest against cross-border vaccine mandate to a protest against all COVID restrictions for all Canadians.
And so thousands of truckers and their supporters headed to Ottawa.
Even before they arrived, Prime Minister Trudeau was making claim about these people he had never even talked to.
The small fringe minority of people who are on their way to Ottawa or who are holding unacceptable views that they are expressing do not represent the views of Canadians who have been there for each other, who know.
And even before the convoy came to his doorstep, Trudeau had his mind made up about people who disagree with his handling of the pandemic.
Last December, Trudeau attacked his critic on a French-language talk show.
...mais il y a aussi des gens qui sont farouchement opposés à la vaccination.
Qui sont extrémistes.
Qui croient pas dans la science, qui sont souvent misogynes, souvent racistes aussi.
C'est un petit groupe, mais qui prend de la place.
Et là, il faut faire un choix en tant que leader, en tant que pays.
On the morning of January 28th, a day before the protest, a pickup truck was photographed with a confederation flag and a Canadian flag.
Clearly, the psychological shortcut was in reference to the convoy, which for the most part hadn't even arrived on scene yet.
Why is the reference to a Canadian flag automatically associated with the protester?
Everyone is Canadian and has the right to have a Canadian flag, right?
That morning, anyone could have had that flag in order to discredit the convoy.
And moreover, all the easier not to be confronted with protesters since they were not yet present.
The following day was the day that would initiate the three consecutive weeks of the Freedom Convoy movement, during which the first impression is made by what people can observe.
Two incidents involving inappropriate sign took place.
First, some photo of a man carrying a Confederation flag were publicized.
Let me explain a bit about what happened that day.
This man, fully masked, also wearing sunglasses, came to the demonstration alone with an apparently custom-made, high-quality flag, was seen at Parliament Hill and reportedly walking for a while down Wellington Street.
This man certainly did not want to be recognized and the photo taken of him, which have been highly publicized, are not low-quality photo it either, but are from experienced photographers.
One of them, Dave Chang, who sold his photo onto Getty Image, including the one of the man with the Confederation flag, which was sold for the modest sum of $575.
He was Prime Minister Paul Martin's official photographer from 2003 to 2006 and is now a freelance photographer who provides photo for editorial as well as for cooperation.
Not only can we see picture of the convoy on his page, but we can also see portrait of Mr. Trudeau.
Curiously, his Twitter account is protected and his Instagram account is private.
I wrote to him without receiving any answer.
The second photographer, Andrew Meire, also seems to be close to Mr. Trudeau when we look at his photo, which he has also published in several legacy media outlets.
His Twitter is also protected.
Randy Balswell, a Carterton-based journalist working for iPolitic, was also there.
As can be seen from their photo, they were all in the same place at the same time since the photo have the same landscape angle.
That day, several people had interaction with the man in question.
Here is my interview with one of them.
Daniel, you were there when the Confederation flag was flying.
You had an interaction with the man.
Can you a little bit explain us what was his behavior?
Yeah, I mean, I was working that day.
I was a body man with Maxim on the day.
He was hovering nearby Maxim trying to get his flag in the background of a bunch of Max's photos, which is the last thing we need.
So I was pushing him away.
I didn't get to see his face or anything.
He was fully masked the entire time, like a ball of clava, so you could only see his eyes and his mouth.
After a while, I got fed up and I just told him, like, bro, you're clearly a plant, F off.
And then a bunch of people around started chiming in and chasing him off.
And then he pretty much disappeared.
I didn't see him for the rest of the day.
I talked to some of my colleagues, some of our volunteers, told them to watch out for this guy in case he came back and tried to do the same thing.
But no one saw him for the rest of the day.
He just kind of scampered off, disappeared.
I don't know if he tucked away his flag and took off his mask or what, but I didn't see him at all for the rest of the day as soon as he was confronted.
Did he say something or did he try to interact with somebody?
He didn't try and interact with me.
I didn't see him talk with anyone.
He was just kind of trying to get his flag into people's pictures and stuff, trying to make sure it got out there, which I thought was pretty strange behavior.
I thought the flag in general was kind of strange.
It was clearly like custom made and stuff for this occasion in specific, which I thought was kind of suspicious.
But no, as soon as I talked to him, he disappeared.
Do he was a part of the protester or not?
All the people around me had the same opinion.
Like they were wondering what he was doing, what he was trying to do.
They didn't like the flag.
As soon as I called him out, everyone started going with me, saying, get out of here and stuff like that.
No one was interested in his kind of the kind of flag he was espousing.
So do you think that he came there for a purpose to disturb?
He definitely looked like an agitator to me.
I don't think he was part of the protest, and it was definitely very strange how he just disappeared as soon as he was called out, but I don't know.
I don't have any special info or anything.
So clearly, this man would not have been part of the protest and was simply coming to discredit the movement.
Segong, one Nazi flag was seen along the left side of the Chateau L'Orie.
The three photos of the Nazi flag that were published in the media were tweeted by freelancer Justin Ling, who claimed that someone sent him this photo and that he wished to remain anonymous.
His photo were then republished by Annie Singh, who happened to be Jiang Min Sing, NPD executive director.
A perfect opportunity to support Mr. Trudeau's claim, isn't it?
According to the photo angle, the person is supposed to have been downstairs in the canal attached to the Chateau L'Orié Hotel.
However, the access to go down there was blocked by the police.
So the canal being more difficult to access, how could someone have been there at the perfect moment when the person with the Nazi flag was passing by?
Here is my investigation on the field.
So I'm currently the other side of the river.
As you can see, it's still locked.
We are now two weeks after the convoy have been dismantled.
But we talk about the Nazi flag who have been shown on the picture on the other side.
And the only way that the picture have possibly been taken is or on this step, just right there, or on the other step there, where the angle is the perfect angle to take the picture there, or probably a little bit down there.
The only thing is like this place was locked and this door was locked by the police as well.
So, oh, someone was allowed to take the picture in this area and down there.
It was prohibited to enter here.
So my question is, who were there?
How they entered here?
And for which purpose they were there in the same time that the Nazi flag was showing on the other side.
At the perfect moment where nobody else saw the Nazi flag close to the Parliament Hill and on Wellington Street.
Only that time, perfect moment.
And afterwards, These people have went away and we never saw this flag again.
So my question is, who?
And the picture I've been taken by one freelancer that I've been shown on the internet is not being taken by him, but he says that it was sending by someone to him during the night.
And it was Justin Ling, the one who had published the picture, but it was sent by someone else.
So you can see me right now.
I'm here where the picture had been taken just here and as well here.
And you can see that the angle is not working because now Guillaume Roi, my camera person, is on the bridge right now taking me and it's not the same angle.
So my question is if the person wanted to take the picture, it's all down.
I will show you the picture on the screen right now, but it's all down there on the street or a little bit up there.
But I'm pretty sure that the person was on the street.
The stair was closed, the access was closed.
And these people were coming from a park where another picture had been taken.
And afterwards, after walking through the stair, we never saw the flag again.
So do they just pass there to show the flag and they came back into the Fairmont Hotel?
Who was this person?
It was actually some individual, the same one who had been seen on the park and as well here and disappear after with the Nazi flag.
But never been shown where the Freedom Convoy was.
So I'm standing where the second picture was taken.
And as I say, it's the park next to the hotel.
You can see the Hotel Chateau Laurier just right there at my right.
And so the people who was walking in this park went towards on the side of Chateau Laurier and the flag disappeared.
So is it staged to just put it out their flag in this park walking where they know that some people will see them and after that disappear?
That is a little bit like mysterious.
So we will show you the distance that this person have walked in total if we follow the picture.
First picture there, follow me.
It's really a short distance where the flag had been seen.
No picture was taken at the Parliament Hill.
So of course, if it was on Parliament Hill or anywhere else with the number of media that was present that day, many pictures will have been like on media.
But only four pictures have been seen so far and published.
You see, now we can actually begin to see the stair just in front of me where the second picture had been taken.
And afterwards, no flag anymore.
Do you think that if the people still believe that these people was part of the protest, I still say that no.
They were there for discredit the movement and I'm here to investigate on it.
So in the Chateau Royer, they have like many rooms.
And we know that On Chateau Royer was for a long time the headquarter of the police officer.
Police Headquarters Mystery00:02:24
From the police that was coming from everywhere from Canada, they were staying there, they were feeding there, and that was their headquarter.
The same hotel where the Nazi flag was and no, no police have interacted with these individuals.
But it was full of police everywhere.
And if this flag was as bad as that, probably police will have intervened, no?
But now I'm standing where this second picture was taken in this stair from someone who took it from down there.
So a Nazi flag whose photo revealed to have been taken by the same individual who walked a few minutes distance, who were never seen again, neither on Wellington Street nor on Parliament Hill, and who, after the photo were taken, completely disappeared from the place.
Moreover, the hotel was also the headquarter of the different police units.
And strangely enough, none of them would have seen it.
I wrote as well to the Ottawa Media Relation, and I didn't receive an answer of my question.
For my part, this is clearly a discrediting tactic.
Why is this?
Because from the following Monday, Mr. Trudeau used these photos as an argument to support his narrative, being able to use them as a tool against the convoy and to support his other argument afterwards.
Yet, for the next 21 days, none of these flags were ever seen again, nor was there any mention of them.
The first impression is always the one that people will keep in mind, and the government knows that.
Then, it was just a matter of playing around with these claims.
Nice tactic, and it obviously worked.
Was my report on the Nazi flag and Confederation flag.