JUXTAPOSE!

Right-wingers who insist on the right to control the reproductive rights of all women currently adamant that making them wear a mask is a totally grotesque violation of their individual freedoms. 

You -- yes, you -- should adopt an elephant.

And for something completely different, I just renewed for another year my adoption of the 62-year old Eleanor at Sheldrick Wildlife Trust.

For $50 (USD), you should consider doing the same -- you just need to pick a different elephant.

Frantic upcoming Rebel News fundraiser -- anti-SLAPP edition.

A moderately unreliable source informs me that Rebel News' Ezra Levant is getting his ass handed to him financial-wise with respect to the two recent anti-SLAPP motions that he just lost. Given that the losing plaintiff in such SLAPPfests is responsible for not only his own costs but the full and complete costs of the successful defendant, it appears that Ezra is set for another round of plaintive sobbing and hurried collection from his reliable band of intellectual defectives known as "Rebel Nation."

Regarding Easy E's doomed action against Al Jazeera, that (actual) media outlet is reportedly asking for $270,000 in costs, while (also reportedly) Ezra's legal braintrusts are insisting that they got their asses kicked to the tune of only $70,000. As long as AJ has the receipts, one suspects their position should prevail. The other winner in the "Boot Ezra in the joy department" sweepstakes would be one Brendan Demelle, who is asking for a paltry $65,000 in costs.

Of course, Ezra is also on the hook for his own legal fees which, in the case of the Al Jazeera action, reportedly exceed $50,000, so even if we conservatively guesstimate half that for the DeMelle action, that suggests that, for the pleasure of bitching and whining that people were mean to him, Ezra needs to hand over just north of $400,000. But it gets so much worse.

Ezra and his team of legal beagles have already filed appeals in both of the above which, after they lose, they will be responsible for all over again. Even being stupidly generous and assuming those total costs on all sides won't exceed $100,000, we're talking a cool half million because Ezra took umbrage with someone describing him as a waste of skin and festering pile of human garbage on two legs (I might be paraphrasing). By the way, I have perused the appeals -- they have less merit than a Lorrie Goldstein column, and would be an embarrassment to a first-year law student with a massive head injury.

Did someone say "fundraiser?"

BONUS TRACK: It's worth remembering that all of the above is taking place in the context of Ezra currently being sued for $200,000 for defamation by one Farhan Chak, so self-described "oil patch arm candy" Sheila Gunn Reid might want to drag that chicken bucket out of the closet:

Tack onto all that Ezra's recent settlememt with CJPME, and Rebel's recent YouTube demonetization, one suspects Rebel is not going on a hiring spree anytime soon.

DOUBLE BONUS: In the midst of all this, can we all remember that Ezra is currently fundraising to fight his $3,000 fine for violating election finance rules, and that he is asking for at least $100,000 to do that:

You read that correctly -- Ezra is determined to spend over $100,000 to fight a completely appropriate and merited $3,000 fine. Perhaps his gullible donors should take a moment to wonder if that's money well spent.

I love a good analogy.

 

Freaks, geeks and Rebel News' David Menzies.

This is such a brilliant comment that I'm upgrading it ... kudos to the anonymous author, and keep 'em coming.

There used to be a sad pecking order to carnival life.

At the top of the food chain were the top performers in the big name circuits. Apart from the exceptional and the lucky, their careers were usually pretty short - these were high pressure, stressful career, both physically and mentally. Those who passed their prime generally retired from performance into some other, less demanding aspect of the operation.

Those who couldn't give it up, though, slipped down to a lower status level - secondary performers off the marquee, or supports to another act. However, since these were also entry level position for newer, hungrier and younger talent, the declining ex-stars were inevitably shunted off the main circuit down to smaller, regional, less profitable tours, moving gradually to more rural, poorer circuits, lower wages, and jobs of rapidly declining prestige.

In the end, those without the capacity to leave the carnie would find themselves hopelessly slipping into roles at the bottom of the pyramid, the jobs that even newcomers wouldn't take. The muckers, the laborers - and of course, the freaks. Freak shows, now long gone, had their own pecking order. Yes, the performers were willing to exploit and exaggerate their own physical anomalies to shock and disgust the rubes. But they retained a sense of their own worth and dignity within a hierarchy all their own. And at the very bottom of that hierarchy was the Geek... a lost soul who made his living eating insects, wallowing in filth, and, as the climax of his act, biting the head off a live chicken, rat or snake.

Circuses were the viewed as the lowest form of popular theatre; sideshows were seen as the bottom rung of circus life; and Geeks were the lowest of the low, held in utter contempt by even the bearded ladies and crocodile boys. Geeks were often people who suffered from mental illness, and most were dealing with drug or alcohol addiction. It's hard to imagine a life more dismal, but they hung on, mostly because there was simply nowhere lower to sink to.

I'm not sure why I'm thinking of Dave Menzies right now...

 

JUXTAPOSE!

Rebel News: "If only those blacks had obeyed the orders of the police, no matter how outrageous or unreasonable or unconstitutional, they'd be alive today."

Also Rebel News: "It is critically important to stand up to the police when they issue orders that are outrageous, unreasonable or unconstitutional!"

See how that works when you're white?

Regarding those "arrests" Ezra was shrieking about hysterically ...

... apparently, eh, not so much.

AFTERSNARK: More then one correspondent has suggested that the Montreal constabulary was taking the mouth-breathing yahoos from Rebel News less than completely seriously, and this might all blow over given that there were (apparently) no actual arrests. But I suspect that would change if Ezra, in his infinitesimal wisdom, decided to raise holy hell about this, and sue.

If Ezra decided to make an issue of this, it is entirely possible that the cops would decide to do something about it, and the obvious target would be Rebel's clown prince of clownishness, David Menzies, who can be seen clearly on video pushing a police officer and, yes, that constitutes assault, so it would be entertaining to watch Ezra go full-metal retaliation, at which point the eventual outcome would be Menzies being saddled for the rest of his life with a conviction for assaulting a police officer.

Then Menzies can find out how limited his career prospects would be.

No, no, too wordy, let's tighten that up a bit.

 

Ezra: "Some of you might get arrested, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make."

There ... fixed it for you.

I believe I predicted that perfectly.

 Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Damn, I'm good.

OMG: The arrest of David Menzies set to Benny Hill music is the Bowen Yang of icebergs.

P.S. Send money.

HOLY SHIT, but Rebel News' David Menzies is in an assload of trouble. Watch the video clip here, where Menzies gets in the face of a Montreal police officer to the point where she is forced to push him back. Note very carefully in that first few seconds where, after the female officer (justifiably) pushes Menzies, he immediately shoves the officer next to her.

That's assault. Of a police officer.

Menzies is so massively fucked.

UNLEASH THE BOTS! If you didn't realize that Rebel News has an army of automated bots configured to post support, consider this screenshot, wherein two Twitter accounts post precisely the same content within one second of each other:

JUXTAPOSE!

Rebel News: "It's outrageous to shut down a white, Christian church whose only sin was to hold a packed, maskless super-spreader event with more than 300 people!"

Also Rebel News: "Filthy Muslims."

About that "other side of the story" thing ...

The bloviating doofuses at Rebel News love to claim that their shtick is to tell the "other side of the story" ... I'm assuming that's the side of the story from the alternate universe where GOP congresscreature Matt Gaetz is not under investigation for sex trafficking:

 

It's almost like they're not interested in the other side of story or something.

Yeah, about that accreditation ...

Now that Nazi paraphernalia expert and right-wing hack Keean Bexte is no longer a part of Rebel News, is it time for various orgs to yank his accreditation?

 

BONUS TRACK: It's worth noting that Rebel Media was not, in fact, accredited properly via a vote by the Alberta Legislature Press Gallery (who rejected them), but via an override by the sleazy partisan hack that is the Speaker of the House, a fact Rebel revealed publicly shortly after it happened:

Quite simply, bragging about your accreditation when it was granted by a single UCP hack is akin to bragging about how you got into law school, while admitting it's because your uncle is the dean.

JUXTAPOSE!

One of these things is not like the other.

Well, this is a bit awkward.

As Republican sleazebag Matt Gaetz sinks slowly into the sunset:

 

it's worth remembering just who kept giving him all that publicity:

But Hillary's e-mail server, amirite?

This comment deserves its own post

Anonymous commenter just gifted me with the following, which I will now share with the world:

Here's another interesting development. The Albino love child of Ezra Levant and Sheila Gunn Reid appears to have been quietly expunged. Try searching for Keean Bexte's "journalist" page at the Rebel. It's gone. Then look for the masthead photo they've been using that shows the whole smirking team, prominently featuring Keean. It's gone too. His "program" is no longer included in their list of shows. I wonder what triggered the final flush? I've actually wondered about his mental health over the last few months (the paranoid fantasies and over-the-top outbursts of rage were getting disturbing), but I'm thinking perhaps it was his unwise decision to seize onto the Dominion voting machine "scandal" before they started suing their slanderers. Perhaps Ezra has decided this is a good time to put some distance between the Rebel and another massive lawsuit?

Things are getting exciting, no?

Thank ya very much: I believe I foresaw something like this a couple months back.

THIS SHOULD BE GOOD:

We should start a pool.

Um .. what the fuck?

Well, this is an interesting development:

So, if I read this correctly, donors can now claim official charitable tax receipts for donating (in a roundabout way) to Rebel News? Really?

(Wag of the tail to anonymous commenter, who pointed this out.)

P.S. Here is the web site for "The Democracy Fund," whose advertised mandate does not seem to include shoveling money to Rebel News, then subsequently issuing tax receipts for that.

Also, here's the CRA page, verifying that they are, in fact, a registered charity. Again, nothing there suggests that their mandate extends to paying lawyers to represent people openly breaking the law.

BONUS TRACK: I'm perusing the information page of "The Democracy Fund" here (click on Section C), and I am positively fascinated by the answer to this question:

This does get more interesting by the minute.

OH, MAN, IT JUST GETS BETTER. From the charity's CRA page, we learn of its three directors:

And where do all of Lyndon Dunkley, Joe Nadler and Lyle Dunkley live? Huh ...

That's certainly convenient.

I'M SURE THIS IS JUST A COINCIDENCE:

OOOOHHHHHHHH, MY: As the first anonymous commenter points out, this is not the first rodeo featuring Rebel News' Ezra Levant and a couple of the aforementioned directors, based on this article from the Western Standard back in 2007:

And in closing, he hopes you all die.

In the midst of a devastating third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic with its even more virulent variants, it's comforting to know that Rebel News' Ezra Levant is still cheering for the virus.

JUXTAPOSE!

Conservatives: "Private businesses have the right to discriminate in any way they want in terms of what customers they choose to serve."

Also conservatives: "Private businesses have absolutely no right to bar people from entry just because those people refuse to wear a mask."

OK, then.