Rebel News: As monstrously fucking demented as one of my commenters predicted.

Several days ago, a particularly prescient commenter at this very blog opined about Ezra Levant's sucker-funded Hawaiian vacation:

As is always the case with these little Rebel junkets, you can write their entire coverage before they even board the plane.

• Day One: here we are in the airport, looking grimly serious and getting ready to embark on our expedition to tell you the Real Truth Behind the Scenes.
• Days Two and Three: we’re in Honolulu, where the restaurants and shopping are much better than on Maui. We’re adjusting to the time change, acclimatizing, scoping the mission, getting a real feel for the place. and pestering government officials. Curiously, they won’t talk to us. Obviously evidence of conspiracy.
• Day Four: on Maui. We found a whole bunch of anguished people who lost family, friends, or property in the fires. We shoved cameras in their faces and asked them who was to blame. Here’s a heavily edited montage of the ones who blamed Joe Biden.
• Day Five: Maui was depressing and stank of smoke, so we’re back in Honolulu. Alexa is recovering from PTSD from her time in the disaster zone, so we’re taking it pretty easy; but Ezra’s going out to the beach to tape a few hours of interview with this taxi driver he met who told him it was all a conspiracy by Obama’s relatives to clear waterfront for development.
• Day Six: we’ve completed our documentary on the disaster and will be booking a national tour of tiny church halls across Canada for screenings. Stay tuned.

And just now, another commenter proved the above perfectly correct:

Don't know if anyone's watching the Rebel nuggets being filed from Hawaii, but they may represent the very worst Rebel "mission" yet. In the very first one, a clearly disoriented Ezra wanders aimlessly around in a circle, rambling without a clear point or focus about how pretty the Hawaiian flag is, how awful the fire was, how nice the people are, and how the community didn't actually NEED the Starlink Kit the Rebel had brought them as an offering because, uh, they had several. 

I thought at first he must have been severely jet lagged, because it really didn't make much sense; but the subsequent "stories" have been every bit as pointless and unfocused. The fire looks like it was really awful, here's a guy who thinks Biden should have done more, here's a mom who doesn't think FEMA's any good - nothing for a week but vapid, knee-jerk anger extracted from a community under stress and clumsily edited, Rebel style, to try to exploit their anger and solicit your money.

Unsurprisingly, no one actual story has emerged. Nothing. Ezra says at one point that someone told him that FEMA had been asked to leave a camp. No facts, no interview, no followup. Just Ezra passing on a vague, unsubstantiated rumour of discontent.

And I can sort of understand why. I've always found the people of the islands to be very friendly to strangers, but also VERY closed. I think it's a combination of small-town culture, tourist-island friendly distrust of newcomers, plus a lot of discretion born of the island's sub-rosa marijuana industry. I really can't see them taking kindly to a bunch of weird come-from-aways with video cameras who want them to bear their soul for the record about how much they hate the government.

 

And that's why you read CC. For the awesome commenters.