Google becomes the second large online tech giant to announce that it will no longer promote Canadian news sources on its platforms, following passage of the Online News Act (Bill C-18).
June 29, 2023 - "Google said Thursday it will remove Canadian news content from its search, news and discover products after a new law meant to compensate media outlets comes into force.... The decision comes after the government's contentious C-18 legislation passed Parliament last week.
"The bill has been criticized by tech giants like Metaand Google who say it's unfair to impose what amounts to a tax on links. Some smaller media outlets and experts have blasted the regime because they claim the bulk of the financial benefits will accrue to a handful of a large media players.
"'We're disappointed it has come to this. We don't take this decision or its impacts lightly and believe it's important to be transparent with Canadian publishers and our users as early as possible,' said Kent Walker, the president of global affairs at Google and Alphabet. 'The unprecedented decision to put a price on links (a so-called "link tax") creates uncertainty for our products and exposes us to uncapped financial liability simply for facilitating Canadians' access to news from Canadian publishers.'
"The government and larger media outlets, including the newspaper lobby group and broadcasters like the CBC and CTV, have said social media companies should compensate news outlets for the use of their content.
"Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez suggested Thursday he has no intention of backing down.... 'Big tech would rather spend money to change their platforms to block Canadians from accessing good quality and local news instead of paying their fair share to news organizations,' Rodriguez said in a statement....
"Rodriguez added in an interview with CBC News that he was surprised by Google's statement because the government's talks with the company are ongoing. 'We're still having conversations with Google as recent at this morning,' he said. 'Google knows very well that the clarity they need is coming soon through regulation.'
"Just yesterday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the government was confident Google would come around on the legislation."
June 28, 2023 - "The Democracy Fund (TDF) is pleased to announce that it will crowdfund the costs of the legal defence for Tamara Lich, the peaceful protester who was a leader of the trucker convoy last year. Tamara has been charged with several minor, non-violent offences including mischief. Her trial is scheduled to run for four weeks, beginning on September 5th.
"Tamara's legal team is being led by Lawrence Greenspon, a senior criminal lawyer in Ottawa.
"'Tamara's prosecution shows how a prominent political dissident is treated by our justice system,' said Alan Honner, TDF's director of litigation. 'Many people see Tamara as a political prisoner as her prosecution has been impassioned, and she has already been imprisoned for 49 days on relatively minor charges. She is now facing a month-long trial, which is prohibitively expensive for the average person.'
"TDF is crowdfunding Tamara's criminal trial. The Calgary-based Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms continues to provide a legal defence to Tamara Lich and many other truckers who are being sued by Ottawa resident Zexi Li.
"'The trucker convoy exposed the government's willingness to invoke extraordinary powers to suppress a nationwide protest that was remarkably peaceful,' added Honner. 'Tamara has become the face of that protest, so there is a lot at stake in the outcome of her trial.'
"To assist with Tamara's case, please make a donation on this page. Donations are eligible to receive a charitable tax receipt.
"Founded in 2021, The Democracy Fund (TDF) is a Canadian charity dedicated to constitutional rights, advancing education and relieving poverty. TDF promotes constitutional rights through litigation and public education. TDF supports an access to justice initiative for Canadians whose civil liberties have been infringed by government lockdowns and other public policy responses to the pandemic."
The Trudeau government's wasteful Covid relief spending, on CERB and other bailouts that were poorly targeted or given to ineligible recipients, will have cost Canadian taxpayers more than $110 Billion by 2033, Canada's Fraser Institute reports
June 27, 2023 - "The total cost of the federal government’s wasteful COVID spending — money that was poorly targeted or sent to ineligible recipients — will eclipse $110 billion by 2032/33, partly as a result of higher debt interest costs, finds a new study released today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank.
"'Taxpayers will bear the costs of Ottawa’s wasteful COVID spending for years to come in the form of higher debt and interest costs,' said Jake Fuss, associate director of fiscal policy studies at the Fraser Institute and co-author of Fiscal Waste During the Pandemic in Canada and the United States.
"The study finds that Canada’s federal COVID spending — which totaled $359.7 billion — has added $8.3 billion to present-day interest costs on the country’s national debt. Crucially, an estimated 25 per cent of Canada’s COVID spending ($89.9 billion) was wasted in the form of overpayments, money being sent to ineligible recipients, and/or those that weren’t in genuine need.
"Of the $8.3 billion in annual debt interest costs arising from COVID spending, $2.1 billion of that can be attributed to the wasteful spending. Over the next ten years, the total cost of the federal government’s wasteful COVID spending will be $111.0 billion, including both the $89.9 billion in wasteful spending and $21.1 billion in ongoing debt interest costs to service the debt from such wasteful spending.
"The study also calculates the cost of wasteful COVID spending in the United States. Including higher debt interest costs, the total wasted spending in the US will total an estimated $1.56 trillion by 2032/33.
“Deficit-financed programs during COVID will impose significant costs on taxpayers for years to come, making it all the more important that programs are properly targeted and taxpayers dollars aren’t wasted in the future,” said Tegan Hill, a senior economist with the Fraser Institute and study co-author.
May 24, 2023 - "When Sen. Tim Scott (R–S.C.) ... announced his 2024 presidential bid on Monday, the speech was predictably full of the upbeat, anecdotal, ain't-America-grand stuff that Scott, like generations of Republicans before him, has made central to his political career. Then things suddenly turned dark. 'When I am president, the drug cartels using Chinese labs and Mexican factories to kill Americans will cease to exist,' Scott vowed. 'I will freeze their assets, I will build the wall, and I will allow the world's greatest military to fight these terrorists'....
"Scott's bellicosity was no mere bolt from the blue. As Reason has been documenting for six years now, Republicans, even while otherwise souring on U.S interventionism abroad, have increasingly concluded that the alarming spike in domestic fentanyl overdoses would best be treated by sending the military into Mexico. Donald Trump first floated the idea, while he was president, of designating drug cartels as terrorist organizations — thereby allowing for extraterritorial prosecutions, enhanced investigative powers, and increased penalties for domestic drug-related crimes — in March 2019.... Trump himself in the summer of 2020 twice asked then–Defense Secretary Mark Esper whether 'we could just shoot some Patriot missiles and take out the labs, quietly,' according to Esper's 2022 memoir. Notable MAGA politicians Sen. J.D. Vance (R–Ohio) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R–Ga.) have both suggested violent interdiction south of the border, as have a bevy of more traditional hawks. There are a handful of escalatory bills bouncing around Congress.
"Open presidential primary contests, filled with hot air as they may be, are nonetheless useful X-rays of a political party's ideological heart.... So ... here are the top six 2024 GOP presidential candidates talking in their own words about using the U.S. military in Mexico to fight fentanyl-dealing drug cartels. Below that are some Reason arguments against merging the war on terror with the war on drugs.
Donald Trump.... 'When I am president, it will be the policy of the United States to take down the cartels, just as we took down ISIS and the ISIS caliphate,' the former president said in January. '[I will] order the Department of Defense to make appropriate use of special forces, cyber warfare, and other overt and covert actions to inflict maximum damage on cartel leadership, infrastructure and operations.'
Ron DeSantis.... 'Would you build the wall and would you use the military to go after Mexican drug cartels?' Florida's governor was asked at a press conference this month, replying, 'Yes, and yes.' He elaborated: 'The border should be shut down.... You do need to construct a wall.... We also have to come to terms with all the amount of fentanyl that's coming into our country.... You ... gotta go in and you gotta really go in with all guns blazing and using all the leverage that you have to be able to do it.'
Mike Pence.... 'The cartels are in operational control of our borders,' the former vice president said at a campaign stop in March.... "National security begins with border security. We need leadership that will secure the southern border of the United States of America as a priority.... Not only do you have this humanitarian crisis coming across, [there's] the impact on our economy, families, and communities, the flow of illegal drugs.... We have to have leadership willing to use American strength."
Nikki Haley.... 'When it comes to the cartels,' the former South Carolina governor said in March, 'you tell the Mexican president, 'Either you do it or we do it.' But we are not going to let all of this lawlessness continue to happen. And we can do that by putting Special Ops in there, by doing cyber, by really being strategic—just like we dealt with ISIS, you do the same thing with the cartels.'
Vivek Ramaswamy.... 'If the U.S. military has one job, it is to protect U.S. soil here in the United States, including the southern border,' Ramaswamy said in a March interview. 'And treating the cartels like terrorists doesn't just mean freezing their assets.... I think it means justified military force to decimate the cartels, Osama bin Laden–style, Soleimani-style.... And I think it's important to do it in…one cycle of aggressive shock and awe. And that solves the fentanyl supply-side problem.'"
Tim Scott .... Asked by NBC News to clarify his use-the-military comments in his announcement speech, Scott said: 'What we should do is whatever it takes to secure our southern border and stop the Mexican cartels from bringing fentanyl across the border.... Should we have more of a military presence on…our southern border? Obviously we should.... Should we say exactly what we're gonna do? Of course not."
June 25, 2023 - "Bill C-13 An Act to Amend the Official Languages Act was signed into law on Tuesday. This first-of-its-kind legislation mandates bilingualism in the federally regulated private sector. According to Languages Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor, the bill aims to 'reverse the decline of French' in Canada....
"According to Blacklock’s Reporter, Bill C-13 requires airlines, banks, ports, railways, and other federally regulated employers operating in regions of Canada with a 'strong francophone presence' to use French. The legislation does not clearly define what constitutes a 'strong francophone presence.' Cabinet last April 27 added a new clause stating 'The minister of Canadian Heritage shall advance the equality of status and use of English and French in Canadian society'....
"During testimony on Oct. 25 at the Commons Languages committee, employers pointed out various complaints about the legislation. 'I’ll give you an example,' said Daniel-Robert Gooch, CEO of the Association of Canadian Port Authorities (ACPA). 'They’ve discovered they can just go on websites and, "Oh, OK, this consultation document, do you see on the bottom of page five you refer to an appendix and that is in English?"'
"'While some official language complaints are well-founded and require corrective action, our members have in recent years faced increasing complaints that are vexatious in nature and do not in our view protect or assist with the values the act stands for,' said Gooch.
"In a submission to the Senate Languages committee, the ACPA stated Language Commissioner Raymond Théberge instructed employers to revise previous Twitter posts to ensure compliance with French language requirements. 'There was a recent recommendation by the commissioner to "back tweet’ years of historical English-only tweets,” wrote the association. 'Recently, one of our members had to address a complaint regarding an English-only sign. The sign in question was not erected within the port authority’s lands nor under its purview'....
"[D]espite 54 years of official bilingualism and $7.7 billion in federal promotions, the department of Canadian Heritage wrote in an April 5 report [that] 'The viability of francophone official language minority communities remains fragile'.... 'The rate of bilingualism outside Québec decreased slightly despite an increase in the number of students enrolled in second language learning programs,' wrote researchers.
"By an official estimate, 9.5% of Canadians are bilingual outside Québec. Only 3.5% of people outside Québec identify French as their first language."
A current widely accepted mainstream belief is that SARS-Cov-2 began as a deadly killer virus, and only after vaccination and mutation evolved to today's milder state. A look at the real world data from the Diamond Princess cruise ship proves otherwise.
June 22, 2023 - "The current widely accepted conventional, mainstream narrative on the covid hysteria era goes as follows: There is a lab leak or purposeful release or natural spillover event in China, leading to a novel virus infecting the masses. That virus is at first ultra virulent and ultra deadly, leading to a pandemic that causes widespread human tragedy. The virus then mutates to become less and less severe over time, leading to where we are today....
"That line of reasoning advances the idea that a 'novel' coronavirus — evidence of which the Chinese government uploaded to the internet in January of 2020 — once caused a super deadly disease, and then mutated over time to become less and less of a severe threat to humans.... [B]oth the majority of unapologetic lockdowners and those opposed to the lockdowns largely agree with this framework. It explains how the virus evolved from the 'Wuhan strain' to the less potent 'Omicron' strain, and beyond, they say.
"The problem with this conceptual framework is that it’s baseless and flies in the face of all available evidence, because from the very beginning of the covid hysteria era, there was never an out of the ordinary disease burden imposed upon human civilization. The extensive burden to humanity was applied by governments, not a virus....
"There is no data supporting the idea that a novel, lab created virus was initially supercharged before fizzling out when dispersed more broadly.... Lab leak or not, what happened amounted to just another cold/flu respiratory season. Everything else was the result of human intervention. It wasn’t a virus that shut down society and spooled up the money printer. Your government did that. None of 'the measures' were ever necessary because “COVID-19” was nothing more than just another series of years when lots of humans suffered from respiratory illness. Tragically, every year, millions of people, particularly the elderly, don’t make it through the annual respiratory illness season....
"A handful of major events stand out, including the Wuhan Zombieland psyop, the iatrogenic chaos in Europe and New York City, and Big Pharma marketing fraudsters from Pfizer, Moderna, and other corporations that claimed mRNA injections lessened the severity of coronavirus disease.... The common thread is that it’s junk information through and through. There was never a 'lethal covid strain' or anything of the sort, and the very first widely reported coronavirus horror story proves that point.
"Let’s go back to February of 2020. Remember the supposedly awful covid outbreak on the Diamond Princess cruise ship? The 'outbreak' on the Diamond Princess was the first piece of hysteria programming that seemingly caught the attention of the entire world. Look at ... these scary headlines!
"Inside the cruise ship that became a coronoavirus breeding ground." - The Guardian
"Coronavirus quarantine of Diamond Princess cruise ship 'chaotic,' Japanese expert claims" - NBC News
"Inside the nightmare voyage of the Diamond Princess" - GQ
"Now let’s look at the real data from Diamond Princess, the ultimate petri dish. This data makes clear that there was no 'severe strain' in the first place. Of the 3,711 people aboard the ship, only 20% tested positive for evidence of the coronavirus, via shoddy PCR swabs. Yet among those 20 percent, the vast majority of passengers and crew who tested positive had zero symptoms. By the time all passengers had disembarked from the vessel, there were only 7 reported deaths, with the average age of this cohort being in the mid 80s.
"It still remains unclear if these passengers died from, with, or without Covid.... [T]he ship’s passengers (who had an average age in the 70s) were subject to an almost month-long quarantine, and the medical staff on the vessel neglected those with health issues, leaving many elderly people without basic health support. The inhumane treatment undoubtedly assisted in exacerbating the problem.
"Yet even if we designate every covid labeled death as a covid death, this supposed 'killer virus' didn't have much impact, even when spreading among a demographic that is most vulnerable to complications from disease. Even from the very beginning, as proven by the Diamond Princess 'outbreak,' the threat posed by 'COVID-19,' was exponentially overblown. Human modified or not, this was no SuperVirus or anything of the sort."
June 19, 2023 - "On a jaunt to the Global Food Security Summit in 2022, even European Council President Charles Michel noted that the need for stable food supplies was 'the major global challenge today … and now is the time for all of us to translate our political commitments into concrete action.' Alas, at the EU level, 'concrete action' has turned into a euphemism for undermining the very agricultural sector that feeds its citizens. And thanks to the bloc’s determination to position Europe as the global hero of climate action, Brussels is well on its way to alienating and impoverishing a large part of rural Europe.
"Setting increasingly ambitious environmental targets from the comfort of haute cuisine Brussels is one thing. But navigating the fraught local realities — which achieving such goals actually entails — is a totally different bag of frites. Just look at the Netherlands. After decades of Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) funding that prioritized greater output, Dutch farmers are now being told they are the ultimate villains of the emissions reduction debate. So, despite being lauded in the press as the 'tiny country that feeds the world' ... tens of thousands of Dutch livestock farms are now facing closure or mandatory state appropriation.
"This is all unfolding against the backdrop of a 'greening' CAP, which has already seen European farmers reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent between 1990 and 2010.... [F]armers’ misgivings aren’t about denying climate change — which impacts them greatly — or misunderstanding the actions required to mitigate its worst effects. They’re about the lack of realism in Brussels when it comes to setting time frames to achieve the EU’s environmental targets — because it is those time frames that will collapse rural economies.
"As it currently stands, farmers are literally being squeezed to death between the bloc’s emissions and biodiversity goals. And this is gutting rural Europe — and its 10 million family farms — from the inside out. Remarkably, though, Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski in the Berlaymont doesn’t seem to really care, despite widening a rural-urban divide that will ultimately benefit populists on both sides of the political spectrum.
"From a farming perspective, rural Europe is being disproportionately targeted by policymakers as easy prey. So, while car manufacturers (in Germany), the nuclear industry (in France) and big pharmaceutical companies (in Ireland and other member countries) have their state sponsors to water down — or delay — proposed European legislation, farmers are being hung out to dry on the altar of the EU’s climate ambitions. And agriculture isn’t even the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the EU. In fact, total agricultural emissions are equivalent to less than two-thirds of those derived from manufacturing or energy generation.
"In this context, the EU’s climate approach — and its role in mainstreaming fringe economics — is already fanning rural social unrest. For example, the right-wing FarmerCitizenMovement (BoerBurgerBeweging, BBB) is now the largest party in the Dutch Senate and all provincial assemblies, despite only being established in 2019. And therein lies a warning for the bloc’s complacency when it comes to rural Europe: The Dutch experience shows that disputes regarding centralized environmental planning can also tap into wider feelings of rural disconnection. How else could the Netherlands — with just 50,000 farmers — deliver nearly 1.5 million votes for the BBB in early 2023?...
"These movements are really about representing those living outside big cities who feel excluded from policymaking in national capitals. And they are giving a voice to small-town residents who feel threatened by governments’ increasingly rigid approach to social and environmental objectives. So, as the growing opposition toward the proposed Nature Restoration Law continues to grab headlines, it’s only a cypher for a rural Europe that feels more and more alienated from urban policymaking elites.... Brussels is well on the way to losing rural Europe — and it only has itself to blame."
Eoin Drea is senior research officer at the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies.
Following final passage of the Trudeau government's Online News Act (Bill C-18), Meta has begun blocking news content on Facebook and Instagram in Canada.
June 22, 2023 - "The standoff between Ottawa and Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg deepened Thursday after Bill C-18 — the ‘online news act’ — cleared the Senate and prompted Meta to begin blocking news content on Facebook and Instagram. The bill, which is now awaiting Royal Assent, will require outlets that post news content — such as Facebook and Twitter — to pay for it.
"Reaction from Meta, Facebook’s parent company, was quick and came mere minutes after the bill’s passage was announced.
“Today, we are confirming that news availability will be ended on Facebook and Instagram for all users in Canada prior to the Online News Act (Bill C-18) taking effect,” it said in a statement. 'We have repeatedly shared that in order to comply with Bill C-18, passed today in Parliament, content from news outlets, including news publishers and broadcasters, will no longer be available to people accessing our platforms in Canada'....
"News outlets will continue to have access to their accounts and pages, and will be able to post news links and content; however, some content will not be viewable in Canada, it added.
"The company went on to say 'the Online News Act is fundamentally flawed legislation that ignores the realities of how our platforms work, the preferences of the people who use them, and the value we provide news publishers. As the minister of Canadian Heritage said, how we choose to comply with the legislation is a business decision we must make, and we have made our choice.' It’s not clear if Google will follow suit.
“'Not content with taking hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars, Big Media has colluded with the federal government again to steal more money that they didn’t earn,' said Western Standard Publisher Derek Fildebrandt. 'The consequences — Facebook turning off the news — have been known for more than a year, but they did it anyway because they know that the biggest losers in this would be the upstart independent media that have been eating their lunch. These people — the federal government and Big Media — are criminals who have consciously conspired to either steal more money, or kill off their competitors using the power of the state.'
"Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez was reportedly holding last-minute talks with Google Thursday afternoon, the minister’s office and a Google source confirmed to the National Post. In an emailed statement to the National Post, Rodriguez said: 'Facebook knows very well that they have no obligations under the act right now. Following Royal Assent of Bill C-18, the Government will engage in a regulatory and implementation process. If the Government can’t stand up for Canadians against tech giants, who will?'
"During a Senate committee hearing earlier this month, Rodriguez threatened unspecified 'options' for retaliation if the companies followed through.... Google spokesperson Shay Purdy replied the company is 'doing everything we can to avoid an outcome that no-one wants.'
"During testimony before the Senate Transportation and Communications committee in Ottawa this month, Fildebrandt asked for the bill to be 'opt-in” so news organizations such as the Western Standard do not lose the traffic they receive from those platforms if the Big Tech companies decide to block Canadian news.... The amendment was included in the final version of the bill passed by the Senate on June 16. At the time Sen. Leo Housakos (QC) mentioned the Western Standard as an example of successful media companies thriving in the 'current news media landscape'.... 'We had witnesses that came before the committee, including print associations that represent journalists in this country that say thanks to Meta, their traffic is up as much as 31% to 33%,' said Housakos."
After protests, the Barrie, Ontario, city council has shelved two controversial bylaws that would have made giving food, clothing or other goods to the homeless illegal on city property.
Jun 21, 2023 5:00 AM ADT - "Christine Nayler is staying in a tent outside Barrie City Hall, but it's not because she doesn't have a home. The Barrie grandmother and her peers are aiming to raise awareness about new bylaws expected to pass on Wednesday night that she says will make her work of serving her unhoused neighbours next to impossible. Nayler is the co-founder of Ryan's Hope, a non-profit corporation that serves those experiencing mental health, addiction and homelessness challenges.... The organization serves hundreds of meals each month to those experiencing homelessness.
"Bylaw[s] 67 and 68, which Barrie City Council will vote on on Wednesday, make the distribution of food, literature, clothes, tents, tarps, or other items to protect people sleeping outside from the elements illegal on city property.... Nayler ... says organizations like hers are targeted by the proposed bylaws that could see those who distribute goods fined between $500 and $100,000 for carrying out their core missions — fines they could never afford....
"Other advocacy groups against the bylaws are planning other quiet protests at city hall during the Wednesday night meeting. Faith leaders have also written a letter to councillors indicating the ban would mean they cannot act on their faith....
"Several advocates told CBC Toronto they will attempt to overturn the bylaws through a Charter challenge if they pass on June 21. Lawyers from the Community Legal Clinic of York Region have written to Barrie's mayor and council urging the councillors to press pause."
Jun 21, 2023 8:27 PM ADT - "The city of Barrie, Ont., has backed away from proposed bylaws that would have made it illegal to distribute food, literature, clothes, tents and tarps to unhoused people on public property. At a meeting on Wednesday night, council decided unanimously to refer bylaws 67 and 68 back to staff.... 'There should be zero fear out there that a bylaw officer or a peace officer is going to come and ask you not to give water to someone who needs it,' Mayor Alex Nuttall told council chambers.
"The proposed bylaws have sparked controversy in Barrie for weeks. Several people in council chambers held up homemade placards on Wednesday to protest the proposed bylaws. 'We support the unhoused,' read one. 'Fight poverty, not the poor,' read another.
"Earlier, in a news release, Nuttall said the city no longer needed the proposed bylaws after a community not-for-profit organization, Busby Centre, decided to relocate its daily outreach program away from the Barrie waterfront.... According to the city, the intent of the bylaws was to stop organizations like the centre from handing out food and supplies along the Barrie waterfront and instead move their outreach to private property....
"On Tuesday, the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness had set up an online tool that allowed people to send emails to Barrie councillors to protest the bylaws. Less than two hours before the meeting, more 23,000 emails had been sent, the group said."
June 17, 2023 - "A California woman is suing the hospital that removed her breasts when she was 13, claiming her doctors pushed her into the procedure under the 'erroneous belief' she was transgender. Kayla Lovdahl, now 18, says she underwent the invasive surgery after being urged to 'entertain' the plans by medical professionals when she was just 11-years-old.
"According to a lawsuit filed by Lovdahl against Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and four doctors, it is claimed they 'handed Kayla the prescription pad, and allowed her naïve, emotional, childish, rollercoaster of feelings to dictate the so-called "treatment" that she would receive'....
"After years of battling mental health issues, Lovdahl claims she was 'exposed to online transgender influencers' who prompted her to 'erroneously' believe she was transgender when she was 11. With her parents unsure how best to support her, the tween sought medical help, rapidly sending her down a path of risky treatments. By the age of 12, she was on puberty blockers and testosterone despite never receiving a proper psychological evaluation, per the lawsuit.
"Amid concerns over the potential surgeries, it is alleged that Lovdahl's physicians told her parents: 'It is better to have a live son than a dead daughter'. Her entire transition evaluation lasted just 75-minutes, she claims, as Lovdahl alleges the process that led her to surgery is 'ideological and profit-driven medical abuse'. Within six months, Lovdahl underwent a double mastectomy, a decision she now regrets after detransitioning a year ago.
"Her lawsuit condemned the system that allowed her to undergo the invasive surgery at such a young age, saying: 'There is no other area of medicine where doctors will surgically remove a perfectly healthy body part and intentionally induce a diseased state of the pituitary gland misfunction based simply on the young adolescent patient's wishes.'"
"After detransitioning, she says she began regular psychotherapy sessions to help her mental health, 'which is the care she should have been receiving all along', the lawsuit states. 'The vast majority of cross-gender identified children, if medically treated in early adolescence, risk regretting the decision after they are old enough to realize their losses,' Lovdahl added.
She said the ordeal left her with 'deep physical and emotional wounds and severe regrets'. She also claims the hospital and doctors did not provide her and her parents proper 'informed consent', which would have introduced therapy sessions, something she says was never offered."
A "mountain" of unused medical PPE has been discovered dumped next to a nature reserve in Hampshire, UK, possibly some of the £15 Billion worth of unusable PPE bought by the Department for Health and Social Care during the Covid pandemic.
18 June 18, 2023 - "Thousands of packs of personal protective equipment (PPE) have been found dumped in a mountainous heap in the New Forest. Pictures show hoards of aprons and suspected face masks left in a giant pile in the town of Calmore, bordering the Testwood Lakes Nature Reserve and AFC Totton Football Club.
"The 'large-scale' discovery was made public at a Hampshire County Council (HCC) meeting, where councillors said they reacted with 'horror' and are demanding answers, though it is not yet known if the items are linked to the Covid-19 pandemic.
"During the pandemic, the Department for Health and Social Care spent £15 billion [$25 Billion CDN] on PPE that proved unusable and is now being burned, including masks and gowns for NHS staff, prompting Whitehall’s spending watchdog to condemn the 'extraordinary waste'.
"Now, a report from the HCC’s regulatory committee has revealed that the discovery was made following an investigation by New Forest District Council into use of land at Little Testwood Farm Caravan Park, Hants. The report said:
'Following their own investigations into the use of land as a caravan park, New Forest District Council reported the large-scale storage of packs of old PPE. It became apparent that thousands of packs of medical aprons had been dumped on the land with no obvious signs that they were being protected or stored for some future use. The concern is that they have been dumped with no intention of removal to a proper facility'....
"The council has now launched an 'enforcement activity' with the Environment Agency, police and New Forest District Council to establish who is responsible and 'whether it was discarded by a Health Trust as substandard during the Covid procurement'....
"A spokesman for the Environment Agency confirmed its officials were due to visit the site next week, adding: 'We are unable to comment further in order to not prejudice any investigations or subsequent enforcement decisions.'"
June 14, 2023 - "Canadian police have opened an investigation into allegations China sought to intimidate a member of parliament and his family. The RCMP commissioner said on Tuesday the investigation is one of several by the federal force looking into foreign election interference....
"Last month, Canada expelled a Chinese diplomat over the allegations. In retaliation, China accused Canada of 'slander and defamation' and expelled a Canadian diplomat based in Shanghai.
"Canada's spy agency [CSIS] believes China sought details about [Conservative MP Michael] Chong and his relatives in Hong Kong in an effort to deter 'anti-China positions' ... after the politician put forward a motion in parliament in 2021 that declared China's treatment of its Uighur minority population a genocide. China denied the accusations and sanctioned Mr Chong shortly after.
"On Tuesday, RCMP interim commissioner Michael Duheme told a parliamentary committee in Ottawa that is probing foreign interference that the police force was only made aware of the allegation related to Mr Chong through Canadian media. A series of media reports, many based on leaked intelligence briefings and information accusing China of attempting to interfere in Canadian elections, have been published in recent months.
"'When we were made aware of it, we approached Mr Chong and began the investigation,' Mr Duheme told federal lawmakers. The investigation is one of more than 100 current RCMP probes looking into foreign interference within Canada, he said. The RCMP is also assisting election officials with investigating allegations of meddling by China in the last two federal elections.
"Former Conservative party leader Erin O'Toole, speaking in the House of Commons last month, claimed he had been the target of a misinformation and 'voter suppression' campaign by the Chinese government. Jenny Kwan, a member of parliament for the left-leaning New Democratic Party, has also said she was targeted by China after accusing Beijing of human rights abuses against Muslim Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region.
"China has consistently denied any allegations that it attempted to interfere in Canadian politics.... The expulsions and allegations of Chinese election interference in Canada have led to a significant deterioration in relations between Ottawa and Beijing."
The earliest known Covid-19 cases were gain-of-function researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, says a report authored by three independent journalists.
June 16, 2023 - "The first three people [known] to contract COVID-19 were scientists working at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), claims a new report — a finding that could confirm the lab leak theory of COVID-19's origins....
"The report — authored by independent journalists Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger, and Alex Gutentag, and published on Substack — names Ben Hu, Yu Ping, and Yan Zhu as 'three of the earliest people to become infected with SARS-CoV-2' in fall 2019. Not only did these three scientists work at the WIV, but they worked specifically on gain-of-function research; Hu in particular was considered a 'star pupil' of Shi Zhengli, dubbed the 'bat woman' for her work studying coronaviruses in bats.
"'Ben Hu is essentially the next Shi Zhengli,' molecular biologist Alina Chan told the Substack authors. "He had been making chimeric SARS-like viruses and testing these in humanized mice. If I had to guess who would be doing this risky virus research and most at risk of getting accidentally infected, it would be him'....
"The findings have not yet been confirmed by other journalists, though several government agencies — including the FBI and the Energy Department — have stated that the lab leak is the most likely theory of COVID-19's origins. In February, FBI Director Christopher Wray told Fox News that COVID-19 most likely resulted from 'a potential lab incident in Wuhan, China.'
"In March, President Joe Biden signed bipartisan legislation requiring the federal government to declassify all intelligence relating to the pandemic's origins. The deadline for declassification is June 18, which means whatever information caused the FBI to reach its determination should become publicly available in a few days."
June 15, 2023 - "The Liberals followed through on [a] long awaited threat to gut Alberta’s energy sector by introducing its so-called ‘sustainable jobs’ legislation in Ottawa Thursday morning. The formal title of the bill is 'An Act respecting accountability, transparency and engagement to support the creation of sustainable jobs for workers and economic growth in a net-zero economy' but everyone east of the Ontario-Manitoba border knows it simply as the ’Just Transition Act.’
"Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson appeared alongside Labour Minister Seamus O’Reagan, union representatives and members of the NDP to announce plans to create a ‘sustainable jobs council’ and a ‘sustainable jobs secretariat’ under a five-year plan. In remarks televised from the West Block, Wilkinson said 'the country’s economic future will need aligning,' and thanked the NDP for their support. Although he pledged to 'work with the provinces,' ironically there were no premiers in attendance.
"Plans to introduce the legislation were announced in this spring’s federal budget. At an appearance in Edmonton in April, Wilkinson hinted the legislation would be delayed after strong opposition from Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who called it 'short-sighted' and 'harmful' to the province....
"Bill C-50 has already received first reading this morning. Already Ontario’s labour unions, including the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) were voicing unqualified support. 'With the mounting impacts of climate change, such as devastating wildfires and extreme storms, Canadians are witnessing firsthand the urgent need for action,' CLC said in a statement."
June 15, 2023 - "When Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson introduced Bill C-50 this morning, he called it the ‘Canadian Sustainable Jobs Act.’ But don’t be fooled by the bait-and-switch messaging. The legislation Minister Wilkinson announced today that's already passed First Reading in the House of Commons, is part of the Liberal plan to replace Alberta’s hydrocarbon economy with some kind of green fantasy economy. A year ago, they called it the ‘Just Transition’ — oddly enough a phrase coined some time before by Alberta’s own NDP....
"According to Natural Resources Canada, the minister had with this legislation — Bill C-50 — advanced just ‘one of the 10 key action areas’ outlined in the government’s Interim Sustainable Jobs Plan, announced earlier this year. This bill provides for an advisory body, a series of five-year plans and ‘a sustainable jobs secretariat to enable policy and program coherence across federal entities etc.…’ Nine more ‘key action areas’ to go....
"Premier Danielle Smith [has] offered her government’s broad support to the federal government’s emission-reduction goals, but says ‘no’ to the latest Trudeau fatuity of capping emissions or achieving a net-zero electrical grid by 2035. In her ‘warning to Ottawa,’ she said, 'As premier I cannot allow these contemplated federal policies to be inflicted upon Albertans. I simply can't and I won't.' It was well said. Now may it be well done. Where's that Sovereignty Act?"
June 14, 2023 - "People in North Korea have told the BBC food is so scarce their neighbours have starved to death. Exclusive interviews gathered inside the world's most isolated state suggest the situation is the worst it has been since the 1990s.... The government sealed its borders in 2020, cutting off vital supplies. It has also tightened control over people's lives, our interviewees say. Pyongyang told the BBC it has always prioritised its citizens' interests.
"The BBC has secretly interviewed three ordinary people in North Korea, with the help of the organisation Daily NK which operates a network of sources in the country. They told us that since the border closure, they are afraid they will either starve to death or be executed for flouting the rules. It is extremely rare to hear from people living in North Korea. The interviews reveal a 'devastating tragedy is unfolding' in the country, said Sokeel Park from Liberty in North Korea (LiNK), which supports North Korean escapees.
"One woman living in the capital Pyongyang told us she knew a family of three who had starved to death at home. 'We knocked on their door to give them water, but nobody answered,' Ji Yeon said. When the authorities went inside, they found them dead, she said. Ji Yeon's name has been changed to protect her, along with those of the others we interviewed.
"A construction worker who lives near the Chinese border ... told us food supplies were so low that five people in his village had already died from starvation. 'At first, I was afraid of dying from Covid, but then I began to worry about starving to death,' he said.
"North Korea has never been able to produce enough food for its 26 million people. When it shut its border in January 2020, authorities stopped importing grain from China, as well as the fertilisers and machinery needed to grow food. Meanwhile, they have fortified the border with fences, while reportedly ordering guards to shoot anyone trying to cross. This has made it nearly impossible for people to smuggle in food to sell at the unofficial markets, where most North Koreans shop.
"A market trader from the north of the country ... told us that almost three quarters of the products in her local market used to come from China, but that it was 'empty now'. She, like others who make their living selling goods smuggled across the border, has seen most of her income disappear. She told us her family has never had so little to eat, and that recently people had been knocking on her door asking for food because they were so hungry.
"From Pyongyang, Ji Yeon told us she had heard of people who had killed themselves at home or disappeared into the mountains to die, because they could no longer make a living. She was struggling to feed her children, she said. Once, she went two days without eating and thought she was going to die in her sleep.
"In the late 1990s, North Korea experienced a devastating famine which killed as many as three million people. Recent rumours of starvation, which these interviews corroborate, have prompted fears the country could be on the brink of another catastrophe."
June 3, 2023 - "The Toronto mayoral election on June 26 is raising important urban issues and its significance will ramify far beyond Toronto.... Although there are over one hundred mayoral candidates, polls indicate that approximately 90 per cent of decided voters support the seven leading candidates. These are bracketed by Olivia Chow on the left and Anthony Furey on the right. Neither of these could reasonably be called an extremist and the other five principal candidates are somewhere between them in policy terms: former provincial education minister Mitzie Hunter, former Toronto police chief Mark Saunders, environmentalist city councillor Josh Matlow, former deputy mayor Ana Bailao, and councillor Brad Bradford.
"Chow is a veteran former councillor and widow of federal NDP leader Jack Layton. Anthony Furey is a journalist who recently left Postmedia, which publishes the National Post. As the only prominent person in the race who is not a career politician, Furey is refreshingly original in his views, and is the only overt capitalist among the principal contenders. He has risen from zero to about 10 per cent in the polls in two months, but Chow seems to have about a third of decided voters. She ran for mayor in 2014 against John Tory and Doug Ford. There were almost a million votes in that election, ... and Ms. Chow, the NDP’er, polled less than a fifth. She has not been politically active in the intervening years, and her strong showing now demonstrates superior name recognition, but ... if one or more of her opponents starts to make inroads, there is no reason to be confident that her present standing is unshakeable....
"Furey is the candidate who is moving quickly and has attracted prominent and interesting supporters, including the eminent public intellectual Jordan Peterson and former Conservative foreign minister John Baird. His candidacy has practical as well as symbolic importance. If he is able to get his message out more widely in the three weeks before election day, his rapid advance in the last month could accelerate and make him a serious contender. The other candidates apart from Ms. Chow have generally moved laterally in this period, and are not easily distinguished from each other. If they all withdrew in favour of one among them, that candidate would inherit a strong challenging position as a middle-of-the-road alternative....
"Furey is advocating 500 more policemen to assure the safety of the transit system and launch a counteroffensive on the streets of more crime-ridden areas, while Olivia Chow wants to send out more social workers on police emergency calls. Furey as the only outspoken capitalist contender in this race, is the only advocate of municipal tax cuts, specifically the municipal land transfer tax. He also advocates reductions in some expenses. He wants to repurpose plans for new safe injection sites to treatment centres where drug addicts are not simply supervised while they take drugs, but are actually treated to fight their addiction.
"Furey is the only serious candidate who really wants to roll back the corrosive despotism of the bicycle lanes that are strangling Toronto’s streets. Chow is a peppy and in policy terms, aggressive, cyclist.... It is a symbolic issue ... [T]he lanes are little used, are almost completely unused for the five coldest months of the year, and are really just a method for enforced technological regression and the coercion of the population to patronize the public transit system, which is substantially infested with drug addicts and hooligans.... In the same spirit as her championship of bicycling, Olivia Chow wants to level the elevated Gardiner Expressway and funnel all traffic onto the ground....
"The only other candidate apart from Chow who at this point appears to have any chance of winning, the only one who will roll back the soft left consensus that has produced the deterioration of security in the subway, the increasing obstructive presence of drug addicts, homelessness, and assorted misfits, and an increasing crime rate, and the only one who is not steeped to the eyeballs in platitudinous and robotic continuation of the policies that have made the city less enjoyable even as its physical proportions become more impressive every year, is Anthony Furey.
"It’s time for leadership and innovation, for some course corrections, and deference to the legitimate wishes of the majority rather than the poseurs and mythmakers of the left. The office seeks the man, and dull habit, humbug, and socialist fear-mongering must not be allowed to stall the maturation of this remarkable city.... We must not fail to seize this opportunity to take the next step in Toronto’s metamorphosis toward becoming one of the great cities of the world. Anthony Furey should be the next mayor."
June 7, 2023 - "The Toronto Sun has learned Quebec police are investigating the possibility that the smoke creating poor air quality in southern Ontario and making downtown skylines disappear may have been the result of arson. 'There is an investigation because the cause is suspect,' said Surete de Quebec media officer Hugues Beaulieu.
"This narrative has not made [,,] many headlines — and is polar opposite to what the likes of U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer and Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Environment Minister Steven Guibeault have been saying.
The ongoing wildfires remind us that carbon pollution carries a cost on our society, as it accelerates climate change. Good read exploring the concept of that social cost of carbon. https://t.co/IQpgP2HYyg — Steven Guilbeault (@s_guilbeault) June 7, 2023
"They are blaming the wildfires on 'climate change' and on the 'climate crisis.'
Between NYC in wildfire smoke and this in PR, it bears repeating how unprepared we are for the climate crisis. We must adapt our food systems, energy grids, infrastructure, healthcare, etc ASAP to prepare for what’s to come and catch up to what is already here. #GreenNewDeal 🌱 https://t.co/GT7hY4Ffm3 — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 7, 2023
"Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s close friend and former principal secretary, Gerald Butts, also tweeted: 'The fires are worse because of the conditions in the forest. The conditions are caused by climate change'....
These Canadian wildfires are truly unprecedented, and climate change continues to make these disasters worse. We passed the Inflation Reduction Act to fight climate change, and we must do more to speed our transition to cleaner energy and reduce carbon in the atmosphere. — Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) June 7, 2023
"And Ontario Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner tweeted that despite 'wildfires raging' the 'premier still won’t make the connection to climate change'....
"The actual cause is yet to be determined. We do know, however, that previous forest fires in places like Fort McMuray or in Nova Scotia are suspected to be caused by humans.... [F]oul play is not suspected in all of Quebec’s fires. But the ones which began in the small village of Chapais — in the northeast section of the province — are being probed.
"'It is suspicious,' said one business owner there. 'It is believed that some of these fires here were deliberately set'....[A] temporary trailer set up as a police command post is staffed with experienced arson investigators....
"'As we speak, we think that certain elements that stand out may suggest that these fires may be linked. There are a few things that seem suspicious,' Mayor Isabelle Lessard told the local le Quotidien newspaper. 'The SQ is investigating in order to make validations, then to see what is happening and if there is a criminal cause behind it, but we are still in validation.'
"While police have been told of unexplainable movements of people in the town, police stress the need for everyone to be patient. 'We are still investigating,” said Beaulieu. 'There are no results.' Part of the challenge, he said, is so many other sections of the province ignited at the same time. Beaulieu said while 'it’s a hard investigation to do, we will do it.'
"At this point, it’s too early to say the early fires in Quebec were started on purpose or as a result of climate change. But we can say Quebec provincial police are on the case."
The World Health Organization and European Union (EU) have signed an agreement and letter of internt to upgrade the EU digital Covid vaccine pass for global use in future pandemics.
June 7, 2023 - "Representatives of the World Health Organization [WHO] and the European Commission signed an administrative agreement and letter of intent at the WHO headquarters in Geneva on Monday, June 5th, for the upgrading of the EU system of digital COVID-19 certification to be used globally in future health crises, Euractiv reported. As expected, the announcement sparked instant backlash on social media, while experts and politicians weighed in to warn about the terrifying consequences that such a system could have in store. 'Are you seeing it yet? … Yet another "conspiracy theory" becoming reality!' German MEP Christine Anderson (ID) tweeted. She added:
If you don’t do as you’re told (get x amount of mRNA shots, get 'recommended' check-ups, procedures, whatever they will deem beneficial to “public health” (definition subject to change any given time) and are unable to provide proof, you will be labeled “a threat to society” and will be turned off with the flip of a switch, thanks to eID and CBDC!....
"According to EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides, who was delighted that the WHO 'will take up the framework' of the EU’s existing vaccine passport system, the aim of the global system is not to restrict liberties, but to facilitate mobility and protect citizens from future health threats.... According to technology expert Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D., a global, digital health passport would be about anything but protecting freedom. As he told The Defender, such a passport system could only mean 'restraints on movement and living for the unvaccinated and forced vaccination to participate in life'....
"According to the WHO’s press release, the global vaccine passport will only be the first building block of the WHO’s Global Digital Health Certification Network (GDHCN), which is set to develop a wide range of digital products to track and deal with contagious outbreaks. According to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the organization is hoping to radically expand the capabilities of the Network in the coming months, progressively introducing a whole range of planned products, including global certificates for vaccination, routine immunization cards, and even international 'patient summaries.'
"As of Tuesday, June 5th, the Certification Network is already operational, joined by nearly 80 countries so far. However, the EU and the WHO aim to 'encourage maximum global uptake and participation' in the long term, the press release states. 'The WHO will continue to work with all regions to ensure that the network is accessible globally,' the WHO chief added....
"This agreement on the two organizations’ joint Digital Health Initiative is merely a follow-up to a previous one in December 2022, when the EU and the WHO pledged to enhance strategic cooperation on global health issues, going much further than just a global vaccine passport. Although building on the EU’s existing infrastructure is a recent development, the idea of a global vaccine passport has been on the WHO’s agenda for some time now, as the organization already commissioned the telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom to build its global vaccine verification app back in February.
"In parallel with the development of this new digital certificate, the EU and the WHO are working together on a much larger project, the so-call Pandemic Treaty, which is a global framework of binding health regulations, set for adoption next year, which would make it mandatory for all 194 member states to follow the WHO’s guidelines during pandemics, including quarantine measures, border closures, and vaccine requirement.
"Naturally, the Pandemic Treaty is also opposed by a growing coalition of MEPs in Brussels. During last month’s International COVID Summit in the European Parliament, Croatian MEP Mislav Kolakusic lashed out against the idea, saying the WHO should be declared a terrorist organization instead of being given unprecedented global powers. If adopted by next year’s 77th World Health Assembly, the pandemic treaty would make it possible for the WHO to mandate the adoption of the Certification Network, which, for now, is still voluntary."
June 7, 2023 - "Canadian wildfire smoke currently turning the [New York City] sky orange is taking our tolerance to new levels. By Wednesday we were registering the wors[t] air pollution of any major city in the world and COVID mask maniacs were back in their element. But don’t fall for the propaganda that climate change is to blame.
"The situation in Canada is similar to that in Australia, where green ideology and chronic government underfunding mean that the forests currently ablaze have not been managed properly for years. Instead of dead wood and undergrowth being removed regularly using low-intensity controlled or 'prescribed' burns, forests have become overgrown tinderboxes. Fire trails that used to allow first responders easy access to the forest have closed over as vast tracts of land are locked away from humans. Logging and other commercial practices that used to self-interestedly tend to forest health have been phased out.
"Back in 2016 when Parks Canada had planned just 12 prescribed burns for the year, Mark Heathcott, the agency’s retired fire management coordinator of 23 years, warned about the importance of the practice to prevent future wildfires.
"In 2020, a paper in the journal Progress in Disaster Science warned: 'Wildfire management agencies in Canada are at a tipping point. Presuppression and suppression costs are increasing but program budgets are not.'
"Canadian indigenous groups also have complained that bureaucratic obstacles hinder their ability to perform the controlled burns they have used for centuries to reduce fuel load, flush out food and regenerate forests.
"[G]reen activists using illogical emotional arguments about wildlife habitats have caused governments to underfund and curtail the scientific use of prescribed burning to mitigate wildfire risk. The ensuing incineration of forests and critters by super-hot runaway wildfires is infinitely worse for wildlife habitats.
"But for climate alarmists, the assault on New Yorkers' air quality is a positive outcome that they can spin to prove their case. They’re like the arsonist who sets fire to a building and then profits from the clean-up."
"When I undertook the task of independent special rapporteur on foreign interference, my objective was to help build trust in our democratic institutions," David Johnston writes in his resignation letter to Canadian PM Justin Trudeau. "I have concluded that, given the highly partisan atmosphere around my appointment and work, my leadership has had the opposite effect."
June 9, 2023 - "Former governor general David Johnston resigned as the Trudeau government’s controversial 'special rapporteur' on Chinese election interference late Friday. Citing a 'highly partisan atmosphere,' Johnston admitted that his role did not help build trust in Canada’s democratic institutions.
"'I have concluded that, given the highly partisan atmosphere around my appointment and work, my leadership has had the opposite effect. I am therefore tendering my resignation, effective no later than the end June 2023, or as soon as I deliver a brief final report, which I hope to be earlier,' Johnston wrote in his resignation letter.
"The former governor general urged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to appoint someone with a national security background to continue the role. 'I encourage you to appoint a respected person, with national security experience, to complete the work that I recommended in my first report. Ideally you would consult with opposition parties to identify suitable candidates to lead this effort,' Johnston wrote.
"Johnston’s resignation comes as opposition parties criticized his relationship with the Trudeau family and his role as a board member of the Trudeau Foundation, which he resigned from prior to his appointment.
"Following Johnston’s resignation, the leaders of all opposition parties immediately called on Trudeau to set up a public inquiry. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre also accused Trudeau of ruining the 'reputation of a former Governor General all to cover up his own refusal to defend Canada from foreign interests and threats'.... Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc issued a statement Friday accusing Poilievre of driving Johnston out of his job, citing his 'partisan attacks.'"
June 2 - "Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Friday signed a bill that bans transgender healthcare including puberty blockers and hormone therapy for minors, making Texas the largest of the 20 states to have outlawed gender-affirming care. Republican lawmakers across the country have promoted similar bills, saying they mistrust the consensus among major medical associations that endorse gender-affirming care as needed and even life-saving for trans youth....
"Texas, the second most-populous U.S. state, has an estimated 29,800 transgender youth aged 13 to 17, according to the Williams Institute of UCLA.
"The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups have pledged to fight the law in court, as they have similar legislation in other states....
"The Texas law creates exceptions for minors who began treatment before June 1 or for those who attended 12 or more sessions of mental health counseling or psychotherapy for at least six months. But those patients 'shall wean off the prescription drug over a period of time,' the law says.
"Backers of such laws say government must intervene against the wishes of parents and doctors because they fear it will cause irreparable harm and say children are incapable of acceding to such decisions.
"Groups including the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics oppose the legislation.
"Republicans introduced more than 500 bills affecting LGBTQ people in 2023, with more than 50 passing, according to the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ rights group. Those numbers are up from 315 bills introduced and 29 passed in 2022."
May. 3, 2023 - Rep. Jarrod Sammis -- who represents Castleton and Bomoseen -- on Wednesday dropped out of the GOP and joined the Vermont Libertarian Party. The freshman legislator says the Libertarians are more in line with his political views, including the party’s Anti-War Coalition, which opposes sending Guard members into conflict without Congress declaring war.
“'I would say there is a lot of work that can be done in terms of social justice issues, but in terms of the Republican Party, there are quite a few Republicans I work with, I’m friends with, and quite a few I’m quite flexible in working, in terms of those issues, in terms of the transition, I only wish them the best of luck,' Sammis said
"'Generally speaking, our platform really focuses on the rights of the individual, every individual. We don’t believe in any oppression, especially oppression from the government,' said Vermont Libertarian Party Chair Olga Madach-Duclerc.
"Sammis will be the first Libertarian in the House in 25 years. Sammis says he is not sure yet if he’ll caucus with the Republicans or the Democrats."
Jared Sammis | From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - May 28, 2023::
"Jarrod Sammis was born in 1989 or 1990 in Middlebury, Vermont, and ... grew up in Ticonderoga, New York. His family has resided in the region for several centuries.... Sammis graduated from Castleton State College in 2013 with a bachelor's degree in communication and public relations. He works as a realtor and marketing coordinator at his family's real estate company, Century 21 Adirondacks...
"Sammis ran for the Vermont House of Representatives as a member of the Republican Party in the 2022 election, running in the Rutland-3 district, which contains Castleton.... A self-identified libertarian who had previously been a volunteer for Gary Johnson's 2016 presidential campaign, Sammis campaigned on three key issues: protecting Vermont's education system by sequestering the education budget to 'protect it from being siphoned from other programs', improving substance abuse and mental health programs, and preserving civil liberties, including LGBTQ rights. He also favored 'reducing the tax burden to make Vermont more affordable', and was opposed to a proposed carbon tax.
"During the campaign, several deleted YouTube videos published by Sammis re-surfaced when archived copies were posted to a blog; in the videos, he 'question[ed] the legitimacy of Joe Biden's 2020 election win and joked about shooting communists'.... Sammis was elected to the state house, receiving 835 votes to Droege's 793, a margin of 43 votes.
"During his tenure, Sammis voted against the Affordable Heat Act, a bill which regulates the importation of fossil heating fuels into Vermont in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. He also opposed the merger of Castleton University, Northern Vermont University, and Vermont Technical College into a single university, Vermont State University. According to the Vermont Daily Chronicle, he has also been a 'strong defender of Libraries of the Vermont State College System, and has worked to keep herbicides out of Lake Bomoseen'. He is a member of the House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development.
"During the press conference for this party switch, Sammis stated his intention of introducing a bill which would 'forbid the Vermont National Guard from being deployed overseas without a formal federal declaration of war'."
"An 'embarrassing' gear shortage has Canadian troops in Latvia buying their own helmets," reports CBC News. "Soldiers also have been purchasing rain gear and equipment belts."
June 5, 2023 - "Canadian troops deployed in Latvia, ... [have] been buying their own modern ballistic helmets equipped with built-in hearing protection that doubles as a headset. They've also personally purchased rain gear and vests and belts to carry water and ammunition. And the number of complaints about the ill-fitting body armour issued to female soldiers has been growing.... The battlegroup of roughly 1,500 soldiers, including more than 700 Canadians, lacks modern anti-tank weapons, systems to counter drones and a dedicated short-range air defence system to guard against helicopters and attack jets.
"Those frustrations have only been compounded by the arrival of more allied troops — among them Danish soldiers who are in some cases arriving with Canadian-purchased gear that makes them better equipped than Canadian soldiers.
"'In general, it was concerning verging on embarrassing to see the differences in issued soldier equipment between us and the Danes," said Lt.-Col. Jesse van Eijk, the Canadian battle group commander in Latvia, in a May 12, 2023 email obtained by CBC News. 'This was only exacerbated by the fact they were carrying more advanced Canadian-made Colt Canada rifles, mounting more advanced Canadian Elcan DR sights, and the fact that most of the systems our soldiers lacked were easily available on the open market and not some sort of closely guarded technology.' For more than three decades, the Danes have been using a variety of Canadian-made weapons, including the C7 assault rifle and the C8 carbine.
"CBC News requested an interview with van Eijk, but he declined through the Department of National Defence. The department said in a written statement that his email was a response to concerns raised during a recent staff visit from the army's directorate of equipment and program management.
"Acquiring better hearing protection for soldiers has been a long-term struggle for the army. Right now, many troops use yellow foam earplugs to protect their hearing from the din of artillery and heavy weapons fire. The absence of appropriate ear protection was flagged to senior commanders in a 2019 capability deficiency report written by the army's infantry school, DND acknowledged.
"In a written statement, DND spokesperson Jessica Lamirande said procurement projects are underway to provide soldiers with more modern tactical helmets, vests, boots, 'converged rain suits, sunhats and hybrid combat shirts.' The department said the clothing is expected to be delivered next year. DND awarded a contract in February for better helmets with ear protection for so-called 'light forces' (special forces and other infantry).... The department also said it's working on buying new handguns for soldiers, new general-purpose machine guns and sniper rifles. The DND statement did not directly address the complaints of soldiers or explain why it has taken more than three years to address concerns about hearing loss — which is accounting for an increasing number of disability claims coming before the Department of Veterans Affairs....
"When it comes to acquiring heavier weapons, Lamirande said the department has embarked on 'a rigorous and systematic process' with a request for proposals going out this summer. A new portable anti-tank system likely will be delivered next year, the department said, while the anti-drone and anti-aircraft systems are still in the 'options analysis phase' and contracts for them are not expected to be awarded until next winter at the earliest....
"Dave Perry, a defence procurement expert at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, said the defence department should understand contractors are facing a deluge of orders since the war in Ukraine erupted in full fury. 'Some of the things that we're looking to buy on an urgent basis for our troops, or pieces of equipment, are things that half the planet is trying to get its hands on right now as fast as possible,' said Perry, whose organization has held conferences that are occasionally sponsored by defence contractors. 'So the longer that Canada delays making these decisions, the harder time it will have and the longer it will take for us to actually get equipment delivered.'"
June 3, 2023 - "Irish farmers are rebelling against a proposal to cull tens of thousands of cattle a year to help Ireland meet its climate change targets.
"The Irish government wants to reduce emissions from farming by a quarter by 2030. Media reports last week suggested that one option being considered was to reduce the national dairy herd by 10 per cent – meaning a cull of 65,000 cows a year for three years, at a cost of €200 million (£170 million) annually.
"One Irish politician described the plan as 'absolute madness' and there are warnings that some farmers will refuse, and others will leave the sector, if an order is introduced.
"The Irish government says that no final policy decision has been taken and that any cull would be voluntary as part of a 'retirement exit scheme' for farmers. But some farmers fear it will not be possible to meet the targets with only a voluntary cull.
"Tim Cullinan, president of the Irish Farmers’ Association, warned that beef and dairy production would simply shift to other countries ... undermining the attempted emissions savings. 'Reports like this only serve to further fuel the view that the government is working behind the scenes to undermine our dairy and livestock sectors,' he said. 'While there may well be some farmers who wish to exit the sector, we should all be focusing on providing a pathway for the next generation to get into farming'.
"Pat McCormack, president of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association, said it was “frustrating” that the industry was being targeted. 'We’re the one industry with a significant roadmap, and, to be quite honest with you, our herd isn’t any larger than it was 25 to 30 years ago,' he said.... If there is to be a cull, he said, 'it needs to be a voluntary scheme. That’s absolutely critical'.
