Ezra Levant and Canadian-Style Trumpism

In Edmonton this past weekend, Ezra Levant and his merry little basket of deplorables posing as journalists held a rally at the legislature opposing the carbon tax passed by the NDP government that is set to come into effect in January 2017. Aside from the fact that Levant claims The Rebel is a journalistic endeavor and that political advocacy more than blurs any pretense of journalistic objectivity, protesting is perfectly fine in a democratic society. Prominent politicians such as Wildrose leader Brian Jean and federal Conservative leadership candidate Chris Alexander were in attendance

Chris Alexander reacts to a crowd at a Rebel Media hosted anti-carbon tax rally, as they
begin to chant "Lock her up." (Sheila Gunn Reid/Twitter, Zoe Todd/CBC)

But things really did go off the rails very quickly:

1. Bernard Hancock (the actor playing the role of "Bernard the Roughneck") encouraged the illegal hacking of the government in order to obtain material that could be used against the government: “I know there’s a bunch of stuff they can dig up on what’s going on in that building…we need their help.”
2. Some individuals attending the protesting appeared to have additional motives as they proudly displayed homophobic signs. Levant claims they were NDP plants since his supporters would NEVER act in such vulgar ways.
3. Supporters of an anti-immigrant group handed out flyers targeting minorities.
4. Perhaps getting the most coverage, many in the crowd began shouting "lock her up!" referring to Alberta premier Rachel Notley (because.... reasons) while federal Conservative leadership hopeful Chris Alexander was speaking. He later expressed how uncomfortable he was when he heard the chant, though didn't do anything about it at the time. Not much in the way of courage, but at least he feels bad.

Not surprisingly, this all resulted in significant media coverage as other conservative (big "C" and small "c") politicians denounced the rhetoric at the rally and comparisons to Donald Trump-style politics were made:

• Graham Thomson: Alberta politicians of all stripes distance themselves from yahoos at Saturday rally
• 'Lock her up for what?' Professor weighs in on Alberta rally
• Wildrose leader denounces 'lock her up' chanters at weekend rally
• Chris Alexander says he was 'mortified' by chants of 'lock her up' aimed at Alberta premier
• Alberta, federal politicians denounce ‘lock her up’ rally as Trump-style politics

Well, we guess not everyone was ready to denounce the "lock her up!" chant:

Then again Brad Trost is sort of an idiot. And considering that your "friend" Alexander is scrambling as quickly as he can away from the incident, we're not sure he would be as appreciative of your public support for him in relation to the chant.

But anywho....

In brief, it was all a bit of a dumpster fire. And Ezra being Ezra, there's no fire he isn't willing to throw more gasoline on as he later double downed on the "lock her up!" chant:

If the shoe fits....

Let's take a closer look some of the incidents that occurred.

Paulie Gloats About McKee's Release, Then Throws Temper Tantrum Over Love's Arrest

Something we've noted over the course of this blog's history is the increasing tendency of Paul Fromm (whom we lovingly refer to as Paulie) to move away from the, "genteel bigotry" he had been noted for advocating publicly in the past. He would couch his racism in euphemisms such as immigration reform and free speech advocate. Increasingly over the years his racist positions have manifested as more extreme and vulgar. This can be illustrated by some of his more recent posts on Facebook, from what tickles his funny bone....

Our Debunking of the Whitaker Matra Used as Source Material

We had completely forgotten about this, but we thought we'd share it now.

Some time ago we were contacted by someone who spent a great deal of time debunking the Bob Whitaker mantra to discuss our article which also took on the cliched claims used in the mantra. Nate then created a video reading portions of our counter and uploaded to YouTube.



If our readers are interested, Nate has a lot of other videos dealing with the mantra specifically and racism in general.

Boneheads Are SO Cute When They Think They’re Clever: Bob Whitaker's Mantra

One of the most common types of fan mail we receive here on the blog from boneheads takes the form of challenging us to debates. Invariably, these challenges are poorly worded, poorly considered, and poorly executed, as the following effort indicates:

And when we decide not to post their incoherent streams of consciousness, they often accuse us of being afraid to post comments by intelligent boneheads, as we might lose people to their powerfully argued prose:

We don’t think this last one needs much of a commentary. Pretty sad and what we’ve come to expect.

Over the past few months, however, the boneheads (perhaps one bonehead who keeps posting the same tripe) have changed their strategy. In what might be the most transparent efforts we’ve found ourselves laughing about in some time, the boneheads are now posing as anti-racists asking for help after being faced with an argument in favour of racism that the, “anti-racists on the street” can not overcome.