Conspiracy loons update

Craig Shearer - 29 April 2024

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the demise of RCR - Reality Check Radio, Voices for Freedom’s media outlet that specialises in content for conspiracy theorists.

They really have been stretching it out - it’s still off the air as I write (Sunday 28th), and they’ve now been off air for nearly 3 weeks, but there are emails going out to their members promising a big announcement tonight.

From the VFF email channel, here’s a little of what they’re saying:

_“These are RCR’s courageous hosts and contributors who are leading the charge in the fight against woke culture, eroding national sovereignty and the cancerous globalist influence.

Well, they’re itching to get back at the helm to resume steering New Zealand away from our collision course with socialism.”_

And:

_“We’re all working hard behind the scenes to find a way to come back on air. But to be frank, with complacency at an all time high, this is taking longer than anticipated.

We hope to have more to report near the end of the week.”_

Their latest email from Saturday night promotes a major update on the status of Reality Check Radio. I guess we’ll see what happens!

My guess at this stage is that they’ll be back on the air in reduced form, but it seems they’re struggling to get the regular financial commitment from listeners that they wanted. Maybe in these hard economic times, people have better things to do with their money than support conspiracy theorists tilting at windmills.

Editor’s Note: The email came out at 8:30pm last night, and basically said that Voices for Freedom need $480,000 to continue running Reality Check Radio, and that for the next week they have a promise from one or more supporters to donation match - so if they can raise the money in the next 7 days, they only need to find $240,000.

Voices for Freedom started during the early stages of the Covid pandemic as a trio of anti-vaxxers protesting their “freedoms” being impinged by government actions aimed at keeping our population safe from Covid in an era when vaccines didn’t exist. It quickly morphed into promotion of drugs such as Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine that supposedly were able to prevent infection or prevent illness from Covid.

More recently, Voices for Freedom embraced full-on conspiracy theory ideas and the promotion of alt-right theories and information, and the idea of “anti-wokeness”, with a strong hint of racism and white supremacy hiding just beneath the surface.

I think (or at least, hope) the demise of RCR is an indication that the freedom movement’s popularity is waning, at least with people tethered to reality. Its ideas will always resonate with some folk, but I think the number of them is decreasing. Nevertheless, I guess I won’t be surprised to see it back after their “big announcement” at some point soon.

In other weirdness this past week, we’ve seen some activity in the Sovereign Citizen movement. Last week a key player by the name of Rachel Brancott, or Rach Ruby as she’s known in the movement, was involved in a police chase after allegedly assaulting a worker at Oranga Tamariki - the Ministry for Children.

Brancott lives in the Nelson/Marlborough region at the top of the South Island, and has been accusing Oranga Tamariki of child trafficking and sexual abuse.

I’ve been digging around on the New Zealand Conspiracy Loons YouTube channel where they’ve been doing an excellent job of keeping track of some of these people.

Perusing her Facebook page gives away any illusion to saneness. Apparently, all this current activity has been predicted through some decoding of the matrix:

Another loon who went along to the Nelson courthouse to attempt to help her out is Mark Thompson, known as The Nelson Knight, another Sovereign Citizen. He tried to attend the court hearing but was thrown out, and then did a Facebook Live in front of the courthouse spouting all sorts of nonsense about paedophilia and Satanic Ritual Abuse, and how Oranga Tamariki is part of 1000+ child abductions and disappearances a year. According to Thompson, children are being sold to overseas interests, maybe in India, for $5 to $10 million each.

Next up on the loons list is another person we’ve covered extensively in the past - Liz Gunn, the former TV journalist who jumped on the conspiracy bandwagon a couple of years back and is still hanging on tight.

The latest from her is her obsession with the Covid vaccine and how the government is covering up its dangers.

Late last year we saw Barry Young, a Database Administrator from the Ministry of Health, arrested for stealing data supposedly that revealed Covid vaccine deaths and releasing it online.

Recently, Gunn posted a video of herself harassing a Radio New Zealand journalist on the streets of Wellington, asking her why they weren’t covering the story of the massive number of Covid vaccine deaths in NZ.

Barry Young has a court date coming up, and it seems likely he might be sentenced to jail and/or face a large fine. Young and Gunn appeared on an overseas internet conspiracy show discussing their respective situations, with both Young and Gunn at one point claiming there wasn’t any personally identifiable data released, followed up by a video where Gunn was claiming she looked through the list of names and looked them up. Nice editing New Zealand Conspiracy Loons!

Anyway, it’s amusing watching these reality-challenged idiots for a while. At some point, reality is going to bite them in the butt!