TheRebel - a web resurrection for Canadian conservative media

Ezra Levant and Brian Lilley are setting up a new website they're calling TheRebel.
Ezra explains:

The death of Sun News makes this Arab-Canadian happy

Omar Mouallem is an Edmonton-based writer, Metro News columnist and editor of The Yards:

... Thankfully ... as of this morning, the most trusted name in bigotry is gone. Sun News Network has shut down.

... It was a network that promoted racism—against Arabs, against Romani people, against First Nations ...
[Nonsense.  Ezra expressed his sincere regrets for his comments about the Romani, but Sun's coverage of First Nations focused on issues of systemic dysfunction and corruption among the Indian leadership, the systemically racist regime perpetuated by the Indian Act as well as highlighting competent, successful reserves like Osoyoos. And, Sun's coverage of "Arabs" wasn't about Arabs it was about radical Islam, its reign of misogyny, homophobia and terror; and it was about execrable Western lib/left apologists covering for it.]

... young reporters launched their careers by contributing to a hate-machine that perpetuated prejudice, especially against Muslims ... 
["hate-machine"? Not so much. Sun was a TRUTH machine. But then the truth doesn't cut much ice, even with our often ridiculously PoMo Supreme Court: “the use of truthful statements should not provide a shield in the human rights context” .]

... If the now unemployed Sun News Network staff, or the congenial media professionals offering their condolences to those who lost their jobs, were brown or Muslim they'd understand just how harmful it is to casually sensationalize stories about Islam ... 
[The phony race card, again. And Sun News wasn't "casual" about its coverage of radical Islam, it was deliberate, forceful and truthful.]

... because this is the overwhelmingly white Canadian media ... 
 [Now, speaking of bigotry, that's just ...phobic.]

 It would seem that the real bigot here is Mr. Mouallem.  But never mind, that whiter-than-white, Jewish, lib/leftist, Jonathan Kay, liked the cut of his jib:

.@omar_aok has a point. How is "Islam's war on the world" less hate-speechy than, say, "Jews: scourge of humanity"? http://t.co/2sICJnJofu
— Jonathan Kay (@jonkay) February 14, 2015

Which brought this obvious suggestion in reply:

Because the latter is a long-perpetuated lie and the former is a suppressed truth?

A gripping tale of a hyper-sensitive "brown" guy and his "white" liberal apologist - both of whom have a disdain for the truth.

Sun News is dead!

This must be Friday the 13th.  Sun News went dark (see also) at about 2:00 AM PT this morning.  That's very bad news.  Now all we're left with is Fox News and leftist, politically correct,  group-think TV in the remainder of the cable news wasteland.

And, we're left to wonder where Ezra Levant, Brian Lilley, Michael Coren, et al might resurface to give us some relief.

Update: Here's Ezra Levant's opinion on Sun's demise.  Sign up here to stay posted on Ezra's next moves.

More debate on the doctor-assisted suicide

Phil Horgan, Catholic Civil Rights League:


Sun News panel, Jerry Agar ++:


Sun News panel, Faith Goldy, JJ McCullough ++:

Let us pray for Sun News Network

On the news that Post Media has gobbled up Quebecor's English language Sun newspapers, Chris Selley wrote one of his typically snotty, derisive pieces on Ezra Levant and Sun News Network.

Chris Selley suffers from Levant Derangement Syndrome (LDS).  He writes as if all he has watched of Ezra’s prime-time show is his most recent hilarious "outrage" (eg. bringing up the foppish Liberal leader’s parentage).  It’s not that exposing Trudeau’s supreme unfitness for Canada’s top job isn’t important work but Selley has, apparently, missed the other 99.9% of Ezra’s excellent work including but not limited to:

Freedom (free speech, free enterprise, democracy and the rule of law)
Lib/left media (the Media Party) group think
environmentalism
the global warming debate
anti-oil fanaticism
fracking
foreign funding of Canadian radicals
“Occupy”, “Idle No More”,  and other radical leftist “movements”
Islamicism and the war on terror
anti-Christian bigotry on the lib/left
China, Russia, 
Putin, Ukraine ...
...

For a full hour show, five days a week, he covers this wide range of topics (often personally, on the street and in the field) with great wit and intelligence, interviewing knowledgeable, expert guests with skill, aplomb and respect.  Selley and his LDS aside, let  us hope and pray that Sun News with Levant, Lilley, Coren and many others continues and never, ever, falls under the management of a Media Party conglomerate.

Justin Trudeau on war with ISIS "the signature of an unserious mind"

Rex Murphy on Justin Trudeau's juvenile "joke" about going to war with ISIS:

Is this how an adult, a possible PM, talks? With its mixture of puerile condescension, its smug assurance that any vulgar reference to the Conservatives will “go over” with everyone, it’s an obiter dictum for the age.

... It wasn’t a slip of the tongue. ...  It was the signature of an unserious mind, not to mention a mindless hit on the pilots of Canada’s military ...

Andrew Coyne on the Trudeau/Liberal position:

... The closest he has come to justifying this utterly discreditable position is to suggest that in fact, the best contribution we could make to the fight was to stay out of it ... As the prime minister put it, “being a free rider means you are not taken seriously.”

Anyone who has followed Trudeau's litany of stupid, juvenile comments has long known that he is absolutely unsuited for the job he is seeking.  Most of the media has, up to now, (Sun News excepted)  been playing the role of "Justin's number one fan".  Is it possible that this could mark a turning point in the media's coverage (and cover-up) of Trudeau?  I can dream, can't I?

John Robson (closing with a dismal prediction):


I tend to disagree with Robson's implication that the state of Canada's military readiness is Harper's doing.  Our military has been chronically underfunded since the 1960's.  We, like the Europeans and other allies have been free-riders largely on American strength, which allowed us to spend mightily on such things as our "world class" universal healthcare. While still low in relation to our GDP, military spending rose substantially under Harper and important capabilities like, for example, the CC-177 Globemaster, have been added.

Assisted suicicide front and centre in BC news

Two days running now there have been front page stories in the Vancouver Sun (here and here) about Gillian Ryan's suicide.  That's suicide, not "assisted" suicide. She planned her own death and carried it out without involving anyone else.  Good for her, except that apparently she wanted to use the occasion to grandstand in support of doctor assisted suicide.  Naturally, the Van Sun and others obliged.

So, now's a good time to revisit Margaret Somerville's 2012 interview on the subject:

Vancouver School Board's idiotic gender policy

Kelly McParland:

... B.C., it is clear, does not view schools as a place in which children are taught the basic tools necessary to navigate life – math, science, geography – but as petri dishes for social experimentation in which teachers are lab technicians with unwitting children as their mice.

... On Monday, the Vancouver School Board approved a policy change aimed at accommodating gender identity and sexual orientation.

... Parents who questioned the change argued, quite reasonably, that six-year-olds aren’t qualified to understand all the intricacies of identity issues. ... Nonetheless, the school board forged ahead, even deciding to adopt new pronouns

... A last-minute amendment mandated that “xe, xem and xyr” may be used in place of “he/she” or “him/her”.

... B.C. teachers will presumably be the ones to add this social minefield to the other developmental issues they are already expected to shoulder ... In this case it appears they may be expected to actively keep parents in the dark about a critical element of their child’s growth.  ...

Sun News' Anthony Furey and Ada Slivinsky:


Such idiocy follows naturally from the decades of indoctrination in radical social theory that many of these VSB members received in their UBC Women's Studies and Gender Studies courses.

Elections Canada's "conflict of interest"

Senator Linda Frum in the Globe and Mail:

“Elections Canada should not have a vested interest in recording a high voter turnout. That’s a conflict.”

I tweeted those words last week. They set off a Twitter storm that may yet contribute to a better understanding of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government’s effort to enhance the integrity of Canada’s voting system with the implementation of Bill C-23.

... Elections Canada is a bureaucracy with two missions: to ensure the integrity of the voting process and also to promote voter turnout. Those two missions are contradictory. You want the biggest vote total? Accept every ballot. You want to eliminate voter fraud? Eliminating improper ballots may reduce vote totals.

... In the war of words over Bill C-23, opponents have hurled the ugly accusation that this government is engaged in voter suppression. The truth is quite the opposite: It is those who corrupt the voting process – and who ought to be the focus of Elections Canada enforcement – who suppress the valid votes of lawful voters.

Frum with with BrianLilley:

Robson's excellent overview of the Earth's climate

John Robson isn't a climate scientist, nor does he claim to be.  But he's a very smart, reasonable guy.  On Friday's Byline show he presented a layman's overview of the history of the Earth's climate in relation to CO2 and the chaotic nature of the climate system.



To summarize, John's main points were:

(1) historically, temperature is completely uncorrelated with atmospheric CO2 levels
(2) atmospheric concentrations of CO2 have been far above today's level for most of the planet's history (more than 20 times higher at one point)
(3) today's CO2 concentrations are near historic lows
(4) the earth's average global temperature today is well below historic averages
(5) the climate system is chaotic, sometimes unstable and generally unpredictable
(6) UN "Climate Change Convention Executive Secretary", Christiana Figueres (channeling Justin Trudeau's admiration of China), is a dope.

Bottom line takeaways:

(1) Is there global warming? Robson didn't discuss it.  From recent data, apparently a little.
(2) Should we be alarmed by it? Hardly.
(3) Can we trust UN climate change policy? No frackin' way!

In Flanders Fields - importance of the poppy

John Robson explains:

Ezra Levant forces "trial" judge to recuse herself

Suzuki mock trial judge withdraws after questions of bias:

Ontario Superior Justice Harriet Sachs announced that she would no longer be participating in a mock trial of environmentalist David Suzuki.

... [Suzuki] was barraged with questions by Sun News host Ezra Levant, including queries on Judge Sachs and her possible bias.

... A Superior Court judge since 1998, Judge Sachs is the wife of Clayton Ruby, a prominent Toronto lawyer known for championing liberal [including radical environmental] causes.

No doubt, without Ezra shining a bright light on her, judge Sachs, having been dumb enough to accept a role in this eco-propaganda stunt in the first place, would have blithely gone ahead with it.  But now that she has let us know who she is, Sachs has compromised any claim she might have had to objectivity in environmental cases that might come before her.  So she might as well permanently recuse herself from hearing any such case. 

Ezra is the man!

Common sense education - how to fix an education system ruined by "romantic progressives"

Brian Lilley at Sun News' Byline has been running Michael Zwaagstra's excellent series of videos on Canada's totally botched public education system.  Some of the main culprits in the education debacle are the university faculties of education which Zwaagstra exposes in video number IX (of X):



Here are all ten videos in the series.

Last year Mr. Zwaagstra gave a comprehensive talk covering the whole problem (an education system that has been ruined by "romantic progressivism").   It's a hour long but well worth the time. 

Zwaagstra's website - all good stuff.

Related, from David Thompson:

Slate’s Allison Benedikt stands at the altar and demands sacrifice: 

You are a bad person if you send your children to private school… I am not an education policy wonk: I’m just judgmental… If every single parent sent every single child to public school, public schools would improve. This would not happen immediately. It could take generations. Your children and grandchildren might get mediocre educations in the meantime, but it will be worth it, for the eventual common good.

Canadian radicals in Egypt

Ezra Levant, unlike most mainstream "journalists", exposes the radical connections and agendas of the Canadians who have been killed and arrested in Egypt:

Nova Scotia's awful cyber abuse law

The Nova Scotia law defines cyberbullying:

3(1)(b) "cyberbullying" means any electronic communication through the use of technology including, without limiting the generality of the foregoing, computers, other electronic devices, social networks, text messaging, instant messaging, websites and electronic mail, typically repeated or with continuing effect, that is intended or ought reasonably be expected to cause fear, intimidation, humiliation, distress or other damage or harm to another person's health, emotional well-being, self-esteem or reputation, and includes assisting or encouraging such communication in any way;

Jesse Brown summarizes the law and his objections:

... Ultimately, bullying is in the eye of the bullied. For many, cyberbullying is equal to a negative thing said about them on the Internet. I’ve met restaurant owners who feel they’re being cyberbullied by Chowhound critics. 

... [Referring to the above definition] If this is the standard, I don’t know a person who isn’t a cyberbully. 

[...] 

Nova Scotia’s Cyber Safety Act is in clear conflict with our Charter rights to free expression, and I can’t imagine it withstanding a legal challenge on those grounds. But that will take time. 

Until then, watch what you say in Nova Scotia, and be very careful not to hurt anyone’s feelings. [And no doubt coming soon in your province.]

It looks like Human Rights Commission/Tribunal kangaroo justice Mark II.

Jerry Agar with Anthony Furey:

The CRTC rules against Sun News' application for mandatory distribution

Sun News announced this morning that the CRTC has ruled against its application for mandatory distribution.  Sun's email announcement tried to put an happy face on things with this:

... The CRTC clearly heard the call of more than 50,000 great Canadians like yourself who spoke up in support of Canadian TV. In their ruling, the CRTC accepted the main arguments put forward by Sun News and has launched a swift process address them. ...

The fight for Sun News isn't over yet. 

Given the list of who had and now has mandatory distribution, Sun News doesn't fit at all (so why'd they apply for it?)  Maybe a re-jigging of the system as CRTC promises will produce a better solution for Sun.

Meanwhile the reaction of Toronto Star readers (99.9% of whom never watch Sun) is, predictably, glee, gloating and insults to Sun TV.

More from Sun News.

Barack ("Oil Slick") Obama

Obama is making noises dissing the Keystone XL pipeline project, again:

In a New York Times interview published Saturday, President Obama came out foursquare against the Keystone XL pipeline, claiming that it would not create jobs. ...

Canada pushes back:



And we shouldn't forget that one of Obama's best pals invested $44 billion in a railway company (BNSF) that can haul tons of oil:

... Krista York-Wooley, a spokeswoman for Burlington Northern, a unit of Buffett’s Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A), said in an interview. If Keystone XL “doesn’t happen, we’re here to haul.”  

... Burlington Northern carries about 25 percent of the oil from the Bakken, said Krista York-Wooley, the railroad spokeswoman. The company can carry higher volumes from North Dakota or Alberta, she said.

Thomas Mulcair is a loon - he's "proud" of helping terrorists keep their Canadian citizenship

Perhaps not surprisingly, The Toronto Star agrees with Mulcair (or is it the other way around?):

Stephen Harper’s government is wrong to consider stripping Canadian dual citizens of their citizenship for committing treason and terror. ... 

... The Tory model would set up an odious and hard-to-justify distinction between Canadian-born criminals whose citizenship can’t be revoked even for treason and terror, and naturalized citizens whose citizenship can be lifted. ...

Justin Trudeau shamed into refunding charities he ripped off.

Justin Trudeau says he’ll compensate any charitable group that paid him a hefty speaking fee to participate in fundraising events.

Only two days ago he was refusing to refund any part of his fee.

Excellent work, Jason Kenney!

Pierre Trudeau, the worst Prime Minister in Canadian history

Bob Plamondon on his new book, The Truth About Trudeau:


Though, should Justin become PM, Pierre would slip to runner-up position.