Oh, this should be good.

And right on cue, Rebel News' Ezra Levant bloviates about how everyone else is a worthless, biased and on-the-take journalist, unlike the real journalists at Der Rebel:

Furthermore, here's Ezra, promising that, by God, no one will be safe from his relentless probing; he will brook no quarter and spare no codpiece in holding absolutely everyone accountable:

Except, as I pointed out a while back, given how Ezra has burned pretty much all his bridges with anyone sane by now, all he has left to attract clicks are ...

... which suggests that there are a few people that Ezra is in fact going to treat with kid gloves, and that would be the people who are still willing to talk to him and -- God forbid -- might even be paying for all that coverage and perhaps even some imminent "Sponsored Content". And if you think I speculate irresponsibly, why, just scroll further down the very page I am quoting to find:

Which leads one to wonder who will have the temerity to ask whether those politicians that are so clearly getting the courtesy of a reacharound from Ezra and Rebel News are perhaps quietly paying for it? And perhaps we might start watching for an onslaught of laudatory Derek Sloan pieces from Der Rebel, and wonder if any money is changing hands.

I'm just throwing that out there.

OMG, I almost forgot ... if one thinks that Ezra and his merry band of Oompa-Loompas are going to treat everyone with the same relentless skepticism and tough questioning, one can see how they are already fawning over ex-CPC dingbat Derek Sloan, but it gets way funnier if you pop over to Der Rebel and search on the name "Derek Sloan," whereupon you make the eye-popping discovery:

That's right ... a simple search for Sloan's name at Rebel produces, as the very first hit pinned to the top, a direct link to Sloan's home page https://www.dereksloan.ca/. No worries, though ... I'm sure that won't affect anyone's objectivity, right? Right?

BONUS TRACK: One is reminded of the days of yore, when Rebel Media couldn't gush over CPC leadership candidate Kellie Leitch enough, giving her prime real estate and interviews:

while keeping it to themselves that Leitch was horking up some serious dosh for all that fawning:

The more things change, etc etc etc ...

THIS AND THAT ... evil minion drops me a note raising a few other issues that I will proceed to expand upon.

First, there is the obvious question of ethics -- are there any ethical issues with taking money quietly from a political candidate, in exchange for laudatory coverage and puffball interviews of said candidate? Let's be clear -- media outlets run political advertising all the time, but those ads are clearly identified as ads, and have the requisite tagline saying something like, "Authorized and paid for by the committee to re-elect Voldemort^H^H^H^H^H^HStephen Harper."

The above standard political advertising is a far cry from being funded to generate gushing coverage and to publish pandering and worthless interviews which inspire one to think of nothing but, "Geez, why don't the two of you just get a room already?" But it gets worse.

Is there anything in the above scenario that would be covered by Canada's election financing laws? Remember how Ezra has already gotten into trouble by blatantly flouting those laws by refusing to identify as a third party? Could the same thing be happening here? If someone like Sloan handed over tens of thousands for positive news coverage, would that require Der Rebel to register as a third party? But there's one more point worth pondering.

Ezra recently vowed to cover the upcoming election, sending his version of the Childrens Crusade near and far to ask probing questions of Justin Trudeau like, "Aren't you embarrassed to have worn blackface in a high school play?" and "Why did you rape that woman?" ... gripping and timely questions like that.

However, if Rebel News is, in fact (and we are just speculating here) being paid by Sloan or anyone else for positive spin, this would suggest that they should be disqualified from any sort of journalistic accreditation of any kind. If there exists this sort of quid pro quo going on behind the scenes, then Rebel could reasonably be described as acting as an agent of that political campaign and, thusly, has no grounds to demand to be granted accreditation as a legitimate media outlet.

It's all very tacky, is it not?