Ezra Levant warns self-driving cars could be remotely disabled by governments under climate lockdowns, like Tesla’s AI tech or Oxfordshire’s £6.5M traffic filters—£70 penalties for violations—mirroring wartime restrictions. Matt Strickland’s Virginia restaurant raid over COVID mandates fuels his Senate campaign defiance, calling for resistance against "globalist" overreach. Meanwhile, a journalism panel’s self-serving blame of audiences reveals deeper tensions: Musk’s Twitter cuts spam and hate speech, yet critics demand "superior" representation, exposing ideological fractures in media accountability. Strickland vows to fight back, framing it as a battle for freedom against unseen forces. [Automatically generated summary]
Can The Government Turn Off Your Self-Driving Car?00:02:00
Hello my rebels, I've got a question for you.
Though self-driving cars look really cool, but if your car is being driven by AI and if it's all registered and connected to the government, can your car also be turned off by AI or by the government?
If they don't want you to drive, say it's a climate lockdown, can they turn off your car?
I'll tell you what I think about that and I'll show you some videos on the subject.
But first let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
That's the video version of this podcast.
I'm going to show you some really cool videos, some scary videos, some fun videos.
You'll hear the audio on the podcast, but I really want you to see it, especially some of the robots I'm going to show you and the self-driving vehicles I'm going to show you.
So if you can, go to RebelNewsPlus.com and click subscribe.
You'll get access to our video version.
We call it Rebel News Plus.
And just go to RebelNewsPlus.com, $8 a month.
Bob's your uncle.
My show is on there every night.
Plus, we have other shows on a weekly basis.
And by the way, that $8 a month is what pays our bills around here because we don't take government money, you know.
All right, here's today's show.
Tonight, if your car is self-driving, can the government turn it off for climate reasons?
It's December 5th, and this is the Azra Levant show.
Shame on you.
You censorious bug interested in Elon Musk because he is so interesting His whole family is.
His mom, Mae Musk, is a 74-year-old supermodel.
Just stunning.
Tesla's Electric Trucks00:03:32
And here's his unusual dad explaining that he named Elon Musk, who wants to put people on Mars.
He named Elon after a character in a book written by the original rocket scientist Werner von Braun about colonizing Mars.
Werner von Braun's book, I think it was his or it could have been Obert's book, spoke about that the head of the Mars colony would be called the Elon.
Now, I remember that, but I never thought of it as a name.
I never thought it was a person's name.
And then when May and I got married, I was quite amazed to discover that her father's grandfather or something had been called Elon Holderman, which just really reminded me of the stories that we had.
And so I thought, well, yes, I'd like that name for Elon.
I won't go through the whole family.
They are unusual.
Let me just say that.
And Elon Musk is the most successful person by many measures in the world.
Now he bought Twitter to make it a free speech app.
He's amazing.
I'm not sure how he can divide his attention among so many projects because while he's done his Twitter thing, Tesla has rolled out their new electric trucks.
Now, I think I'm still a skeptic of electric vehicles for a number of reasons, but you can't deny what he's done.
Look at this.
Electric car maker Tesla unveiled its new heavy-duty semi-trucks on Thursday.
The trucks delivered to PepsiCo had also completed their first cargo run.
According to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who spoke at the company's Nevada plant, the battery-powered truck has three times the power of their diesel counterparts and could reduce highway emissions.
It's a beast.
So, you know, at Tesla, we don't make slow cars.
We don't make this.
This thing has crazy power relative to a diesel truck.
I mean, actually, especially if you're not towing anything, you can zip around like it looks crazy, basically.
It looks like an elephant moving like a cheetah.
Clips from Tesla showed the truck tested in different weather and road conditions.
Musk said test runs were conducted between Tesla's Sparks Nevada factory and its plant in Fremont, California.
Tesla said the over 80,000-pound truck was able to drive 500 miles on a single charge.
However, it didn't give a breakdown of the cargo it was carrying.
Tesla did not offer updated forecasts for the truck's pricing or production plans.
PepsiCo had ordered 100 trucks in 2017 when initial prices and plans for the vehicle were announced.
Brewer Einhauser-Busch, UPS, and Walmart were among other companies that had reserved the semi.
But what's really on my mind when I think of Tesla isn't the electric power source.
It's the driverless feature.
Look at this.
That's a real video of a driverless car driving in the rain in a busy city.
And I guess it's safe.
Self-Driving Reality00:04:01
I could imagine some things going wrong, but of course, that's the difference between being a critic and being the guy in the arena who actually gets things done, who actually invented this, isn't it?
But here's the thing about a computer-controlled car that drives on its own using artificial intelligence.
So you could theoretically have an app in the car.
You could theoretically send a child in the car without a grown-up to drive the child.
There's so many ramifications.
Safety is obviously the first one that comes to mind.
I would think about jobs too.
I mean, there are thousands of people who are truckers and delivery boys whose jobs might be made obsolete by this.
This reminds me of so many drones that are being deployed around the world today.
Drones have done a lot of fighting in the Ukraine-Russia war.
I suppose that's better than people fighting, but the drones are killing people, drones dropping bombs, drones doing surveillance.
And in China, drones are enforcing COVID rules with spy cameras and loudspeakers.
There's a company in the United States called Boston Dynamics that makes robots.
I'm not going to show you the most modern ones.
I don't think you'd even believe that they're robots.
I think you might think they're just computer-generated images.
Let me show you this video from four years ago because it's still unbelievable, but easy enough to still believe.
It's their dog robot, and they're testing how it does when a human interferes with it.
Just watch for a minute, and
that was four years ago.
Here's a clip of today's robots.
Again, I don't think you're even going to believe this is real.
I assure you this is real.
That's not a person dressed up as a robot.
That is a robot.
We're so far down this path.
Add in artificial intelligence, total surveillance, and then throw in some totalitarianism, maybe a gun, and it's all over, isn't it?
Elon Musk says that's the thing he's worried most about, artificial intelligence or AI taking over the world, which is interesting given that he works with AI.
That's the self-driving car part.
That's part of his spaceships.
There's AI in there.
He's got a company called Neuralink.
Oxford's Rationed Travel System00:11:43
Here's what their website says.
We are creating the future of brain-computer interfaces, building devices now that have the potential to help people with paralysis and inventing new technologies that could expand our abilities, our community, and our world.
I'm sure that's true.
Letting paralyzed people walk again, that's amazing.
But I can think of a few more uses for transhumanism besides helping the disabled.
I can think of much more malign uses.
Transhumanism, that means moving beyond human and merging with computers and machines.
That's the near future.
It might even be the present.
But let me show you something very real that is happening right now, as in just last week, in the British county of Oxfordshire, where the famous Oxford University is located, obviously.
I'll start by reading a BBC story from last week about the subject.
Oxfordshire County Council approves 6.5 million pound traffic filter scheme.
Traffic filter, that sounds like it could be good.
Sounds like maybe they're, I don't know, cleaning the air or something.
No, no, no.
They're filtering out you.
You're the dirt that they're filtering.
Let me read a bit.
A 6.5 million pound trial to stop most drivers in Oxford from using busy city routes at peak times has been improved.
The six traffic filters were given the go-ahead by Oxfordshire County Council's cabinet earlier.
It hopes they will cut unnecessary journeys and make walking, cycling, and public and shared transport the natural first choice to stop most drivers, just to stop them.
Not sure what the 6.5 million quid is for.
And of course, don't you worry.
It's only for unnecessary journeys that will be stopped.
I think you yourself are probably a good judge for yourself of what is necessary and what isn't, but no longer.
Don't you worry your pretty little head about that.
Those decisions will now be made for you by the government.
They'll determine if your travels are necessary or not.
Here's some more info on the scheme.
The traffic filters are to be placed at Hythe Bridge Street.
Yeah, we don't need bridges, do we?
Thames Street, St. Cross Road, St. Clemens, Hollow Way, Marston Ferry Road.
They will operate for seven days a week from 7 a.m. till 7 p.m., except those in Marston Ferry Road in Holloway, which would only operate from 7 a.m. till 9 a.m. and from 3 p.m. till 6 p.m., Monday to Saturday.
Any driver going through a filter who is neither exempt nor using a permit would be charged a 70 pound penalty.
So 70 pounds, that's 115 Canadian dollars.
So if you drive into the city, but some politician says it wasn't necessary, you have to pay a $115 fine.
Let me read some more.
Liam Walker, shadow cabinet member for Highways, said the plans were hitting residents' pockets and impacting businesses.
He added, Oxford is slowly being shut down under this anti-motorist coalition.
Well, of course.
Of course, it's going to have many consequences, many side effects, some foreseen, some not.
It's really a form of lockdown, isn't it?
I mean, they love the COVID lockdowns.
They learned what they could get away with, right?
They're telling you who you can or can't visit, where you can or can't go.
They're not pretending it's about COVID anymore.
It's a permanent state of affairs.
Know your place.
Show your papers.
Explain yourself.
Is your trip necessary?
You must answer to the law.
I wonder if they'll just copy the same rules during the lockdown.
Are you going to a funeral?
Are you going to a wedding?
Well, were you immediate family?
Are they part of your bubble in COVID?
Here's the Oxford magazine quoting a local councillor who is so excited about all this.
Councillor Andrew Gant, Oxfordshire County Council's cabinet member for highways management said, currently our roads are gridlocked with traffic, and this traffic is damaging our economy and our environment.
Oxford needs a more sustainable, reliable, and inclusive transport system for everyone.
Traffic filters are an important tool to deliver a transport plan that works for all.
What's an inclusive transport system?
Is that the main point of a transport system to be inclusive?
Or is the main point to get people from point A to point B?
And how is it inclusive if you exclude people, if you ban people, except the very rich who could always afford $115 to go into town or who are politically connected enough to get an exemption?
Say, just a guess.
What do you bet that Andrew Gant, who's very important, you know, he's the Oxfordshire County Council's cabinet minister for highways management.
I mean, that's an extremely important guy.
What are the odds he gets an exemption because he's just so very important?
I mean, just look at that job title.
His business card is probably so long he has to fold it in half before it fits in his pocket.
Traffic filters are designed to deliver a safer, cleaner, and more prosperous place to live, work and visit.
This is not a scheme to stop private vehicles in the city.
Exemptions and permits available for residents and businesses will make car journeys faster, while also improving alternative transport options such as public transport.
How does it make Oxford more prosperous if people can't drive in to shop or go to a restaurant?
And pay no attention to your lying eyes.
This will make car journeys faster, people.
Just like a carbon tax makes you richer, don't you know?
Lower down in the story, they actually quote someone who knows just a little bit of something about prosperity and business in Oxford.
Oxford businessman Jeremy Mogford has publicly raised objections to the new bus gates across the city, which he claims will be like Berlin walls.
Sounds lovely.
But very fitting.
And just a few days ago, Clinton Pugh, who owns Cafe Coco, Casbah, and Cafe Tarifa on Cali Road, unveiled an anti-LTN billboard on the side of Cafe Coco.
The Oxford businessman and father of Hollywood actress Florence Pugh described the move as an ill-thought-out traffic experiment.
I disagree with one part of that, the ill-thought-out part.
It's not ill-thought-out.
It appears that way if you think its real goal is to improve the quality of life, improve prosperity, what else ever they said.
That's just what they say.
The whole point of this traffic lockdown, this climate lockdown, is the lockdown part.
The part that's hard, the part that's bad, the part that's punitive.
That isn't the bug.
That's the feature.
That's the point.
That is why they are doing it.
It's not ill-thought-out.
COVID, climate, traffic, whatever the excuse is, whatever is necessary to say to control your life, that's what they're doing it for.
Here's how a local radio station is covering it.
It's like rationing.
You know, they did that in the UK during the Second World War, and afterwards, for a while, too, they were so poor they rationed food.
Now they're making you poorer.
They're forcing you to ration your travel.
It's energy poverty, really.
Transport poverty.
They're making it scarce.
Here's what they say.
Transport is currently one of the biggest contributors to the climate crisis.
In order to transition to a sustainable economy, we need to change the way that people get around, reducing the number of individual journeys by fossil-fueled cars and creating the conditions which allow people to travel more by foot, by bike, and by public transport.
Get on foot.
Are you a mom with a new baby?
Well, get on foot.
Are you disabled?
Well, get on foot.
Are you elderly?
Just ride your bike.
Or just don't leave your house.
Didn't you practice not leaving your house during the COVID lockdowns?
Well, do that again.
Councillor Emily Kerr, transport spokesperson for the Green Party group on Oxford City Council, described it as an important step towards fixing Oxford's broken transport system.
Transport is currently one of the biggest contributors to the climate crisis.
That's what this is about.
It's about ideology.
It's not about traffic or congestion or roads or anything.
It's about an anti-industry, anti-modernity, anti-car superstition that if we all live more poorly, somehow the weather gods will change things.
Really, no different than the Aztecs sacrificing slaves to appease the gods.
Here's another local report.
My favorite line is this one.
Take a look.
Six new traffic filters in Oxford have been approved following a debate featuring more than 50 opinions from the public.
County and Oxford city councillors, people representing lobby groups, and standalone members of the public came forward.
But despite the presence of police and security, proceedings had to be paused twice because of shouting from the public gallery.
One of the speakers, an objector, was escorted away for refusing to stop speaking at the end of her allotted time as she shouted in the chamber at County Hall, calling on counselors to resign.
That was partly responsible for one of the pauses.
Hey, just a hunch here.
If you have to have police and security drag away peaceful citizens because they're objecting to your traffic rationing plan, maybe you might be, I don't know, a touch on the authoritarian side.
Here's a detail left out of all the other reports I showed you so far.
I think it's where the money is going, that 6.5 million pounds.
They're spying on you, in case you don't know.
They're tracking you.
It's like China.
The barriers equipped with surveillance cameras will prevent private cars traveling through much of the center of the city without a permit.
Other vehicles, including buses, coaches, taxis, vans, mopeds, and HGVs, will continue to have access at all times.
Oh, so it really is the full-on Chinese surveillance state experience, plus their social credit system.
They're not even pretending, are they?
So yeah, I think the UK failed the test.
You know, COVID was a test.
What could the government get away with?
What would the population put up with?
We all learned.
We all observed.
Expect a lot more lockdowns and a lot more passports to go to a restaurant, to go to shops, or even just to use your car.
Oh, and that electric self-driving car business.
Well, about that.
If you drive a regular car, you can still drive it.
Where when you want to drive it, maybe you might be spotted and arrested or given a ticket if you're going where they don't want you to go, but you're still the one driving it.
But those new self-driving cars, I suppose someone could just flip a switch and those things are turned off by the car company or by the government.
A self-driving car is pretty cool, but you're never riding alone, are you?
You're riding with the deep state right there with you, watching every move you make, tracking you, and if need be, stopping you for the climate.
sit with us for more what we're based in canada which had one of the harshest lockdowns in the world The city of Toronto, I believe, had the title for the most locked down city in North America.
Montreal was vying for second place.
Covid Mandates Enforcement00:15:21
Of course, they actually had curfews.
Whether you were sick or not, whether you were vaxed or not, you were not allowed outside your home from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.
And of course, our Australian reporter, Avi Yamini, was in ground zero of lockdowns down under in the city of Melbourne, which was especially punitive and even violent.
I never thought that the United States with its freedom culture, its Constitution, its Bill of Rights, would follow the same path.
And indeed, places like Florida showed the way, putting freedom ahead of fear.
But what about this shocking case, a restaurant in the state of Virginia?
They, of course, did not bend the knee to the COVID lockdowns in 2020 and 2021.
And they got into a dust up with the law back then.
But here it is, almost 2023.
And the restaurant owned by Matt Strickland, a military veteran in the United States, was raided by police just this past week.
And Matt Strickland, being a savvy man of the internet, filmed the whole encounter on his cell phone and posted it online.
Here's an excerpt from the police raid on his restaurant.
And I emphasize this didn't happen a year or two ago.
This happened days ago.
Take a look.
Actually, been found to be detrimental to the community, but you're still going to shut a man's business down over there.
We're not here to discuss whether or not the unconscious is not.
You're not here to discuss whether or not the unconscious.
here to do your job, right?
And you're going to enforce that regardless, right?
Yeah.
So you're part of the problem, man.
I want you to know that.
You're part of the problem.
You're part of the problem.
Everybody in here, every one of you, man, what's going on in this country right now?
The reason that we're in the situation we're in as the United States of America, you're part of the problem, sir.
So you can't complain about what the president is doing.
You can't complain about the state that the country's in right now.
You can't complain about how screwed up it is.
You're part of the problem, sir.
You're just doing your job.
So many people were just doing their job for Hitler back in Germany.
You as well, sir.
That goes for you as well.
That goes for you as well.
That goes for all of you.
That goes for all of you, man.
There's no excuse.
There's zero excuse.
Just doing my job.
That's not an excuse anymore, man.
That's not an excuse.
You guys just doing your job is facilitating what's going on in this country right now.
You're shutting down a man's livelihood.
Well, the voice in that footage is that of Matt Strickland, the restaurant owner and veteran.
He's actually taking his campaign for freedom to the ballot box.
He's running for Virginia Senate.
He joins us now via Skype from Virginia.
Mr. Strickland, pleasure to meet you.
Tell us what it was like being raided on the eve of 2023.
I thought all this was long past.
There were at least four police officers there.
Am I right?
Oh, yeah.
There were way more than four police officers.
There were, I think, about 20, 25 police officers there.
I think they know how much support I have in the community since I've been fighting these COVID mandates since the beginning.
And I do have a ton of support in the community because people with common sense, they feel like I feel.
They're fed up with the government trying to take away our constitutional rights and our God-given rights.
And so I think they felt that my supporters were going to show up and cause a scene.
And so that's why they brought so many police officers.
I'm just guessing.
I don't know, but they showed up in force.
That's for sure.
Yeah, it's strange to me that armed police deal with health measures.
Or I think what they were doing in this case, correct me if I'm wrong, is they were trying to enforce a liquor license.
They took away your liquor license because of this, and they were using that as a technicality.
Did any of them threaten to arrest you, to jail you?
I mean, I just find it an odd sight.
Not in Australia or Canada, but we're not as free as you are.
I find it a very odd sight in the United States to see armed police tackling the great criminal hotspot of a restaurant.
It just feels un-American to me.
Well, it's very un-American.
And that's why you have so many people who believe that there is a higher power at play that goes outside of political parties, goes outside of country borders.
You know, people believe that there's this globalist power that is trying to take over, you know, not just a certain country, but the entire world.
And, you know, it's hard to deny it when so many countries, including the United States of America, are implementing ridiculous mandates and just blatantly stripping their citizens' constitutional and God-given rights away right under their noses.
But the most disappointing thing about it is how many citizens just blindly comply.
I don't get it.
I'll never get it.
And yes, they did threaten to arrest me on multiple times that day.
They've been threatening to arrest me for, you know, almost three years now.
But what they have to understand is I don't give a damn about getting arrested.
I'm not scared to go to prison.
I joined the army when I was 17 years old.
I've been ready to die for this country since I was 17 years old.
And I'll be ready to die for this country until I'm no longer on this earth.
So going to prison does not scare me at all.
What scares me is thinking about what might be the future of my country if I don't fight back right now, because I have four children.
And what I'm not going to do is sit back and live a comfortable life, as comfortable as I can, and pass this fight on to them.
I'm not doing that.
I'm fighting right now to make sure I set them up for success in the future.
And that's my whole goal in this.
Now, you mentioned you're a veteran.
I think that's a fairly well-known fact about you.
Just looking at the four faces in that video clip, frankly, they looked like, I mean, you can't judge a book by its cover, but those four, if you could judge by their faces and the uniforms and their countenance, they looked like good cops.
They looked like people who believe in the Constitution.
And I think you were right to shame them for complying and going along.
I think you had the right angle.
They surely know that you're a veteran and you've served the country.
Am I wrong to say they were uncomfortable doing what they did?
Because they seem like the kind of guys who would normally be on your side, the side of freedom.
And there they were carrying out some petty mandate more suitable to an authoritarian regime.
I don't want to put too much stock in what some guy looks like in the uniform.
But, I mean, because terrible things have been done by people in uniforms throughout the sweep of history.
But it looked like they were uncomfortable there.
And it looks like your upbringing of them got through to them a little bit, at least in their minds.
Yeah, I believe you're right.
You're correct.
I noticed the same thing.
They definitely looked uncomfortable.
And if I had to guess, I would say that they don't agree with the COVID mandates and they did not want to be in there shutting my business down.
But the problem is we're in this position because, like I said before, so many people just blindly comply.
And the government and these different corporations and organizations, they know if they hang our livelihood over our head, our ability to provide for our family, majority of us are going to cave.
They know that.
And that's exactly what happened.
But you have a choice.
And like I always say, we are the police.
We are the military.
We are the teachers.
We're the community.
We are the people of the United States of America.
If we all stand together, there's nothing that these criminal politicians can do because we outnumber them by far.
And if there's nobody to enforce their ridiculous mandates, then they won't be enforced.
But people are just scared into complying.
I had a choice as well.
It was uncomfortable for me.
I was scared as hell, you know, fighting against the mandates because I'm out here on an island.
No other restaurant in Virginia stood up like I stood up and fought back against the COVID mandates.
And if I sat here and told you that I wasn't worried about my future and what was going to happen to me and my family, I'd be lying to you.
But I also knew that if I didn't stand up and fight back, that whatever could potentially be the outcome of that was far less worse than the outcome if I just blindly comply and go along with this and let the world, let the United States of America be molested.
Now, the state of Virginia is very interesting politically.
It's got different parts.
It touches Washington, D.C. That's a particular part of Virginia.
It's got different demographics, but it sort of made world headlines about a year ago when a Republican named Glenn Youngkin ran on a pretty conservative, freedom-oriented platform, and he won.
He turned around Joe Biden's 2020 lead, and he won for the Republicans, the state.
And I want to ask you, this doesn't seem like a Glenn Young can move.
He seems cut more from the cloth of a DeSantis or an abbot in Florida or Texas, someone who might be, might consider giving an amnesty to restaurants or other businesses like yours who may have tangled with an inappropriate bylaw.
I remember in Texas when there was a hairdresser who was facing prosecutions, and the governor just said, I give a blanket amnesty.
We're not enforcing any of these local mandates.
Poof, it's done.
And Ronda Santis did the same thing in Florida.
Do you think there's a chance that your Republican governor would do the same?
Because it feels like this is not a battle for December 2022, and it's not a battle for Glenn Young.
Yeah, I mean, he ran his campaign on the premise that these COVID lockdowns and these COVID mandates were not right, were illegal, and were unconstitutional, and that he would change things if he won.
And then he won.
And then he did hit the ground running and went to work right away.
And he did a lot of good things here in Virginia.
But he hasn't done everything, obviously.
And he knows about my situation because I personally told him about my situation multiple times, face to face, through emails.
He was at my restaurant just about a month ago because we did a big event for Yesley Vega, who was a Republican candidate for Congress here in Virginia.
And so he knows about my story, bottom line.
And why he hasn't acted, you know, to this point, I'm not sure.
I can't speak for his motivations or why he hasn't acted yet.
He still has time.
I'm still holding out hope that he'll jump in and rectify the situation.
But he hasn't so far.
And it's very confusing to me.
Well, the fact that you say he attended a Republican event, is that right?
It was a Republican event at your restaurant.
That's very symbolic.
I mean, he would have known where he was going.
And his mere presence is a kind of moral support.
I mean, you wouldn't go to a place you regarded as disreputable or morally reprehensible.
So the very fact that he attended your establishment, I find hopeful.
And you're right, it is confusing if he attends your restaurant one month and the next month there's a bunch of cops enforcing some order.
So maybe he just hasn't got all the facts in front of him.
What's the state of things now?
Do you have a lawyer fighting for you?
Do you have a crowdfunding campaign?
How are you going to fight back?
Yeah, I do have a lawyer.
His name is Jonathan Aymorn, and he's one of the best constitutional lawyers here in the U.S.
So I'm in good hands as far as that goes.
As far as crowdfunding goes, I just saw, I mean, I think right before I came on the show, that somebody did start a crowdfunding, like a GoFundMe or something like that for my family and I. I'm not sure how to access it.
I just found out, to be honest with you.
But I don't know what the future holds, and I don't know what happens next.
I hope what happens next is the governor jumps in and he saves all of the businesses here in Virginia that are being prosecuted for COVID mandates.
Not sure if there's any others other than me, but I do know that Governor Northam dropped a hammer on the entire state of Virginia.
And I believe that it's time for pastime for Governor Youngin to come in and make sure that from this point on, no other business here in Virginia is prosecuted for any of these COVID mandates.
And that's what I'm hoping he does.
And I'm hoping he does it sooner rather than later.
But if anybody wants to follow my story or stay updated with what's going on or even help and contribute, my website is matt4va.com.
And it's all spelled out, M-A-T-T-F-O-R-V-A.com.
And then on social media, my handles are at Matt for V-A.
So if you guys want to stay abreast of what's going on and stay updated, that's where you can do so at.
And if you want to contribute, you can do so that way as well.
Right on.
Well, we're based in Canada, but we feel like we're dealing with the same issues up here.
And it's a little surprising to hear it to come from the United States of America, which we know is in many ways the freest country in the world.
So we are interested.
We will follow your story.
I wish you good luck with your constitutional lawyer.
If you've got a good constitutional lawyer, I'm very glad to hear it.
And it sounds like the governor maybe just needs to get a few more facts in front of him.
If he shows up at your restaurant, I think that's very important.
That's a sign that he's not buying into the lockdown mentality.
So hopefully he'll do the right thing like they did in Florida and Texas.
We'll certainly keep in touch with you and we'll wish you good luck in your campaign.
I hope that you take this freedom fighting energy that you're using for your own establishment.
I hope that it grows and that you can take it into the Virginia Senate.
And wouldn't that be something, wouldn't that be turning a bad thing into a good thing if they targeted you for the lockdowns and the long-term outcome of that was to put a freedom fighting veteran in the Virginia Senate?
Well, that would be a poetic justice, I think.
Matt Strickland, pleasure to talking with you.
We'll have your contact info, your website, and your Twitter handle below this video for people to stay in touch.
Thanks for spending the time with us.
We're in Canada, but we do have viewers around the United States and we are interested in freedom everywhere.
So thanks for taking the time.
Well, thank you so much for having me on and allowing me to share my story because it is important.
And I want to say hello and thank you to all of my brothers and sisters up north across the border in Canada.
Thanks For Your Time00:06:14
We're fighting like hell for you down here in the United States of America and we will win.
I promise you.
It's going to be a fight and it's not going to happen overnight, but we will win down here and we'll spread that freedom and love up there to you guys in Canada.
We won't let them win and conquer the world and change the landscape of the world.
Freedom will always prevail.
And it's because of patriots like you and me that that will happen.
Right on.
Well, from your mouth to God's ears, thanks for your time today and good luck.
Thank you, sir.
I appreciate it.
Right on.
There you have it.
Matt Strickland, he's running for the Virginia Senate and he's fighting for his freedom and that of his restaurant.
Stay with us.
more ahead.
Hey, welcome back.
Your letters to me.
Peter Story says, hi, Ezra.
Your show this evening was absolutely brilliant.
A masterpiece.
You really nailed it.
Thank you.
Well, thanks very much.
I think I had good material to work with.
If you're talking about that journalism panel, there were a lot of crazy things said there, but the craziest thing was not a flicker, not a moment, not a blink of an eye did they think, are we doing anything wrong as journalists?
No, It was the viewers.
They need to be shut up.
They're the problem.
Mac O is DLBH.
I don't know what that means, but it's a name.
He says, this whole conversation was a self-inflicted joke.
These people can't see that they are hilarious, parody themselves, laughable.
Oh, yeah.
You know what?
That fifth generation settler colonist, self-hating white male apologist was so pitiful.
Like, if you really hate yourself so much, why don't you resign and give the job to someone who is, I don't know, racially or gender-wise superior to you?
Like, if you really hate yourself, why don't you quit unless it's all just BS?
Calder123A says she calls the new Twitter toxic, but gives no examples of this alleged toxicity.
Free speech for all is toxic.
Also, it's strange how the left always babbles about diversity, but seems no problem with limiting men who are nearly 50% of the population, just like their definition of diversity certainly doesn't include Christian conservatives.
Yeah, or just how about someone who's not from Toronto?
How about someone who is with independent media, who has a different point of view?
That's why they hate what's being done to Twitter.
Actually, if you believe the statistics, the hate speech and the spam on Twitter is reduced, and they've eliminated child porn in like one week.
They didn't eliminate it for 10 years under the previous owners.
In one week, Elon Musk eliminated it.
So a lot of the toxicity is actually gone from Twitter.
And the result is more user engagement than ever before in Twitter's history.
But they hate it because they know that in Twitter, they don't get to control the conversation.
What you saw in that journalist conference was a kind of guild, a kind of, you know, we must create barriers to entry and not let anyone else into the public square.
Only we can condemn people.
Only we can belittle people.
Only we can insult people.
And the moment they clap back, we're calling the cops.
The lowest part of that whole thing was sitting in the corner was the man paying for it all, a liberal cabinet minister who happens to be in charge of public safety.
And they repeatedly told him they wanted police to crack down on the mean tweets.
And he nodded along dumbly.
He really is one of the dumbest guys in cabinet.
But the fact that you consider yourself journalists and yet you are in league with the government shows you are not journalists anymore.
You're propaganda men for the regime.
Hey, let me close with something really fun that I only saw on the internet today.
Someone went through the two and a half hours of that panel and spent a lot of time choosing these great clips.
A couple of them are put in out of order.
It's slightly tricky here, but this is the funniest thing I've seen online all day.
So let me leave you with this two-minute highlight reel.
I didn't make this.
I found this on Twitter of that journalistic conference.
You'll get a real kick out of it.
So I'll say goodbye to you now, but take a look at this video after I say goodbye.
It really was the highlight of my day.
Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, see you at home.
Goodbye.
And keep fighting for freedom.
Here's that vid.
I need to warn you that you're going to hear some harsh, disturbing language.
Let me begin with a land acknowledgement as a fifth generation settler and dismantle white supremacist colonial mindsets.
That journalists who are harassed online have significantly more symptoms of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic distress.
I went through a digital lynching recently.
Because I've been dealing with so much trolling that I actually disengaged because my brain doesn't work that great these days.
I wish this panel were more intersectional.
It does not reflect an intersectional look.
I do not seek white men.
Privileged white people, well, especially like white male journalists.
Or white supremacists.
And that journalist does.
I'm supposed to come here and act properly.
And I would like to ask them if they know the definition of misage noir.
It's a really tough question.
Which is misogyny against black women.
So media treats black women very poorly.
Because as journalists, we're like constantly on Twitter.
We're all about Twitter.
When the queen died.
But I didn't see many voices that wrote like I did who said, well, I'm glad the queen is dead.
And let me tell you why.
So maybe I'll make a TikTok.
Far right and the rise of the far right.
And I'm at the park with my dog.
These are all either convoy people or convoy adjacent people.
I like pumpkin spice lattes.
You're fucked.
You're straight up fucked.
Maybe because I'm annoying, or maybe it's just because I'm a journalist.
How do you get those police officers to take this seriously?
And maybe that's a little something to think about, you know?