Thomas Massie wins legal battle to stay on ballot

Judge dismisses lawsuit to remove Massie from primary ballot | Washington Times | Kerry Picket"

March 15, 2024 - "A Kentucky judge dismissed a lawsuit against Rep. Thomas Massie by his primary opponent who claimed the GOP congressman did not qualify for the primary ballot. Lewis County Circuit Judge Brian C. McCloud ruled against Republican candidate Eric Deters, who said in a Feb. 22 suit that T.J. Roberts, one of two witnesses who signed Mr. Massie‘s candidate filing form did not meet the district’s residency requirements....

Thomas Massie in 2018. Wikimedia Commons.

"Kentucky law requires ballot filings to be witnessed by two people who live in the same district as the candidate and are registered with the same political party as the candidate. Mr. Deters said Mr. Roberts‘ permanent address was not clearly established when he witnessed the candidate’s filing because he had temporarily relocated while his home, which was destroyed by fire, was being rebuilt.

"In his ruling, Judge McCloud said state law prohibits stripping voters of their residency status when they live outside the county or precinct temporarily. 'It is clear from the evidence Mr. Roberts intention was to continue to reside at his permanent address,' he said....

"In the ballot paperwork, Mr. Roberts listed a permanent address in Burlington in Mr. Massie’s district, though the home was later destroyed by fire.... Roberts testified that while his home was being rebuilt, he temporarily lived at two different addresses within the district and returned to his newly rebuilt home on Jan. 11. 

"He also said he was advised by the Kentucky Secretary of State’s Office to list his permanent legal address on the paperwork.

"After the case [was] dismissed, Mr. Massie said he was 'glad this frivolous lawsuit is behind us'.... Massie also filed a motion for sanctions against Mr. Deters, a suspended attorney and 2023 gubernatorial candidate known for filing similar lawsuits against other political candidates. Mr. Massie‘s motion would prohibit him from filing future pro se court action without judicial screening, but Mr. McCloud did not enter a ruling Friday on the motion.

"Mr. Deters said he plans to appeal the dismissal. 'Imagine not being allowed to cross-examine witnesses who sign affidavits. Not at a deposition. Not at a hearing,' he said on X. 'That just happened in my case against Thomas Massie. I will appeal immediately. I have made a strong record.'"

Read more: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/mar/15/judge-dismisses-lawsuit-to-remove-thomas-massie-fr/

Long Covid symptoms no worse than for other viruses, Australian research finds

Queensland Australia's chief health officer says it is "time to stop using terms like long Covid, after Queensland Health research found no significant difference in post-viral symptoms between those who had Covid-19 and those diagnosed with flu. 

Time to stop using term ‘long Covid’ as symptoms no worse than those after flu, Queensland’s chief health officer says | The Guardian | Natasha May:

March 15. 2024 - "Long Covid may be no different from other post-viral syndromes such as those experienced after flu, according to new research from Queensland Health. The lead author of the study, the state’s chief health officer Dr John Gerrard, said it was 'time to stop using terms like "long Covid” because they imply there is something unique about the longer-term symptoms associated with the virus'.... There are different definitions of long Covid but the World Health Organization defines post-Covid or long Covid as occurring in people still experiencing symptoms three months after their initial Covid-19 infection, when those symptoms can’t be explained by an alternative diagnosis.

"The study surveyed 5,112 adults who had symptoms of a respiratory illness and underwent PCR testing between May and June 2022. Of those, 2,399 were positive for Covid-19, 995 positive for influenza and 1,718 negative for both. A year after their PCR test, participants were asked about ongoing symptoms and impairment using a questionnaire delivered by SMS link. Overall, 16% reported ongoing symptoms a year later, and 3.6% reported moderate-to-severe impairment in their daily activities.

"The results of the study, which Gerrard will present next month at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in Barcelona, found no evidence that those who had Covid-19 were more likely to have functional limitations a year on compared with those who did not have Covid-19 (3.0% v 4.1%). The 3% of the study participants who had ongoing impairments after Covid-19 infection was similar to the 3.4% with ongoing impairments after influenza.

"The study also looked at specific symptoms in the patients who had moderate to severe impairment, and found in both patients who were Covid positive and negative, the same percentage (94%) reported one or more of the commonly reported symptoms of long Covid: fatigue, post exertional symptom exacerbation, brain fog and changes to taste and smell.

"Gerrard said long Covid may have appeared to be a distinct and severe illness because of the high number of people infected with Covid-19 within a short period of time.... 'We believe it is time to stop using terms like "long Covid". They wrongly imply there is something unique and exceptional about longer-term symptoms associated with this virus. This terminology can cause unnecessary fear, and in some cases, hypervigilance to longer symptoms that can impede recovery.'

"In a press conference on Friday, Gerrard said: 'I want to make it clear that the symptoms that some patients described after having Covid-19 are real, and we believe they are real. What we are saying is that the incidence of these symptoms is no greater in Covid-19 than it is with other respiratory viruses, and that to use this term "long Covid" is misleading and I believe harmful.'

"The researchers acknowledged the findings are associations and do not represent prevalence, and acknowledged limitations in that participants who attended hospital or had pre-existing illness were not identifiable. They also said because 90% of people in Queensland were vaccinated when Omicron emerged, the lower severity of long Covid could be due to vaccination and the variant.

"Prof Philip Britton, a paediatric infectious diseases physician from the University of Sydney and a member of the Long Covid Australia Collaboration, welcomed the study ... [but] said the conclusion that it was time to stop using terms such as long Covid was 'overstated and potentially unhelpful. Long Covid has been a global phenomenon, recognised by WHO.' Prof Jeremy Nicholson, the director of the Australian National Phenome Centre at Murdoch University, said the question of whether long Covid is unique 'cannot be simply answered in this work'."

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/15/long-covid-symptoms-flu-cold

Read Queensland Health release: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1037611

NOTE: When I looked for a visual to use in the story, I found some excellent videos, including from the state-owned Australian Broadcating Corp. However, none of that was available on YouTube. The only news of the study I could find carried by YouTube was this brief attempt to dismiss it: 

‘Long COVID’ symptoms found to be similar to other infections | 9 News Australia | March 17, 2024:

Ontario doctor ordered to take "ethics" retraining

The Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons, the provincial regulatory body, has ordered Ottawa doctor Miklos Matyas to take remedial training in "ethics and boundaries" for saying things to patients that were "contrary to the information and directives provided by the public health agencies during the COVID-19 pandemic." 

Ottawa surgeon not 'free' to share controversial COVID-19 views with patients: college | National Post | Andrew Duffy: 

March 14, 2024 - "An Ottawa surgeon has been ordered to take a remedial course on ethics and boundaries after sharing with several patients his controversial opinions about the prevention and treatment of COVID-19. Dr. Miklos Matyas, a head and neck surgeon, recently lost his appeal of the order issued by the complaints committee of the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons. Matyas argued the case cut to the heart of free speech rights for doctors with dissenting medical views.

College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, 2009.

Photo by Nephron. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

"The complaints panel heard evidence Matyas cast doubt on the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, promoted the use of ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug, and suggested that surgical masks were ineffective at preventing the disease’s transmission. The committee ordered Matyas to appear before the panel for a verbal caution about his communication with patients and colleagues. A date for that appearance has yet to be set.

“'The committee was concerned about the potential impact of the respondent’s (Matyas’) conduct on patient safety and the public interest,' the panel said in its February 2023 decision. 'In the committee’s view, his statements were contrary to the information and directives provided by the public health agencies during the COVID-19 pandemic.'

"Matyas appealed that decision to the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board, arguing the college had no authority to investigate and punish him for expressing scientific opinions that challenged the 'official narrative' on COVID-19.

“'Protection of the public is made possible by protecting physicians’ autonomy and free expression of their honest professional opinions and interpretations of scientific data,' Matyas argued, adding: 'Promoting censorship of dissenting expert clinicians in a rapidly evolving public health crisis is not in the public’s interest.' Any suggestion he offered inappropriate COVID-19 information, Matyas told the review board, rested on the belief that public health officials were always right....

"Matyas’ arguments, however, were rejected earlier this month by the review board, which said the college was legally required to investigate patient complaints and to act when a physician’s conduct was unprofessional. In its decision, the review board said that, while physicians had a Charter-protected right to free speech, it was reasonably circumscribed because they held a unique position of public trust.... 

"'The board finds the committee’s conclusion to be reasonable on the inappropriateness of the applicant’s comments about COVID-19 vaccines and treatment,' the review panel wrote. 'The committee’s conclusion is grounded on public health information in the record, including from the National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.' The board upheld the committee’s order that Matyas enroll in a remedial ethics course and appear before the panel to be cautioned."

Read more: https://nationalpost.com/news/local-news/complaints-case-addresses-free-speech-of-ottawa-surgeon-with-dissenting-covid-19-views/wcm/6d3c6973-f089-4faf-9161-4f62f54165b6

Andrew Duffy is a National Newspaper Award-winning reporter and long-form feature writer based in Ottawa. To support his work, including exclusive content for subscribers only, sign up here: ottawacitizen.com/subscribe

Little known about second virology lab in Wuhan

The scientists who did the most in 2020 to have the lab origin of Covid dismissed as a "conspiracy theory," says journalist Robert Kogon, form a group connected with a little-known German-Chinese virology lab, based in Wuhan and partnered with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which also may have been conducting the same gain-of-function research.   

Germany's Role in What Happened | Brownstone Institute | Robert Kogon:

March 15, 2024 - "The ‘story of the decade,’ ‘smoking gun,’ ‘case closed.’ The story of US-funded – or, as the case may be, even not funded – gain-of-function research on coronaviruses has been widely presented in recent weeks as the solution to the riddle of Covid: not only the nearly definitive proof that SARS-CoV-2 was created in a laboratory, after all, but also the nearly definitive demonstration of whodunnit. The Americans did it, of course.... Anthony Fauci, the funder of the research; Ralph Baric, the ‘designer’ of the virus; and Peter Daszak, the albeit British head of US-based EcoHealth Alliance, who directed the research. They merely needed a little help from one hired-gun Dutch virologist in the person of Vincent Munster, who made Baric’s virus transmissible at Fauci’s Rocky Mountain Lab in Montana before it was shipped to Wuhan. And the rest is history.

"But what about all the German connections to virus research in Wuhan which I have documented ... and which involve not just German funding for virus research in Wuhan, but indeed a full-fledged German-Chinese virology lab in Wuhan, which – unlike the Wuhan Institute of Virology – is located right in the area of the initial outbreak of Covid-19 in the city?

"It is all the more remarkable that these German connections are being ignored given that the supposedly ‘American’ story of the creation and release of Covid-19 points right back to them: namely, to a German or, more exactly, German-Dutch coronavirus research nexus, which has played a key role in the Covid-19 response and at whose centre we find none other than Christian Drosten ... the German creator of the notoriously hypersensitive and unreliable Covid-19 PCR test which was the very basis of the declaration of a pandemic. 

"Let us start with what is invariably described as Anthony Fauci’s Rocky Mountain Lab, where Vincent Muster is supposed to have made Baric’s virus design transmissible. The headline of a Daily Mail article even describes it as a 'Fauci-run' lab. Well, although indeed a NIAID research facility and to that extent connected to the former NIAID director Fauci, the actual director of the facility itself is the German virologist Heinz Feldmann. 'So what?' – you might say. There are 80 million Germans. True enough. But there are not 80 million Germans who have conducted virus research with Christian Drosten.... 

"[I]n addition to Feldmann and Drosten, there are two other notable authors of the above-cited 2011 Ebola virus paper: Vincent Munster, Feldmann’s employee at the Rocky Mountain Lab ... and Stefan Pöhlmann, a virologist based at the German Primate Centre in Göttingen. Like Drosten, Pöhlmann took part in the famous February 1st 2020 conference call with Anthony Fauci on a possible lab leak of SARS-CoV-2. As will be seen momentarily, it was precisely what might be called the ‘EU crew’ around Drosten, and including Pöhlmann, which would attempt to beat back the lab-leak hypothesis in the discussions with their Anglosphere counterparts, both on the call and in emails which followed.... 

"It should be recalled from the FOIA’d ‘Fauci emails‘ that after the spectre of a laboratory origin of SARS-CoV-2 was first raised with Fauci by Kristian Andersen, Jeremy Farrar of the Wellcome Trust would arrange for the famous February 1st conference call, bringing in a German-Dutch team of coronavirus experts to discuss the matter with their dismayed Anglosphere colleagues. The concerned Anglosphere scientists were Robert Garry, Andrew Rambaut, Edward Holmes, and the Danish virologist Andersen, who is, however, based at Scripps Research in California. All of them suspected that the virus had a lab origin or were even convinced that it did. Even Farrar, who has been dismissive about lab leak in his public statements, said he was '50-50' between lab leak and natural origin behind the scenes. 

"But it was members precisely of the German-Dutch ‘EU team’ who are reported to have lambasted Andersen and his Anglosphere colleagues on the conference call and who would continue to urge, in subsequent correspondence, that the matter be, in Drosten’s words, 'dropped.' We have already noted Heinz Feldmann’s connections to the two German members of the EU team, Christian Drosten and Stefan Pöhlmann. The other two members of the team were the Dutch virologists Marion Koopmans and Ron Fouchier. Koopmans is head of the Erasmus University Medical Centre’s department of Viroscience and co-author of Drosten’s controversial PCR-protocol paper [which]had been published by the EU-funded journal Eurosurveillance just one week before the conference call. Fouchier is ... Koopman’s deputy at the Department of Viroscience of the Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam. He is also co-author of the 2003 SARS-CoV-1 paper.... 

"[W]hat does that have to do with Vincent Munster’s alleged concoction of SAR-CoV-2 at Feldmann’s (not Fauci’s) Rocky Mountain Lab? Well, Munster is Fouchier’s student! Fouchier was the co-director of Munster’s PhD thesis (as can be seen here), along with Ab Osterhaus, who is perhaps the key historical figure in the formation of the German-Dutch virology nexus. Osterhaus was the head of the Viroscience Department at the Erasmus Medical Centre Rotterdam until 2014, when he was succeeded by Koopmans. The 75-year-old Dutchman presently leads a ‘One Health’ working group at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Hanover....

"Neither Koopmans nor Pöhlmann appear to have played an active role in the conference call. As the FOIA’d emails and the related Slack messages make clear, 'Christian' and 'Ron' led the charge. They would keep the pressure on in the subsequent email exchanges, ultimately getting Andersen and his Anglosphere colleagues to recant their original theory and to endorse precisely the opposite theory, i.e., that of a zoonotic origin of SARS-CoV-2, in their now infamous 'Proximal Origin' paper....

"Now, if you were a detective investigating a crime – for instance, the creation of a supposedly deadly virus (whether it was in fact so deadly is, of course, another matter) – whose behaviour would you find suspicious? The behaviour of those who themselves expressed concern about a lab leak and were keen on investigating the matter – including, nota bene, none other than Anthony Fauci, who even suggested contacting the FBI! – or the behaviour of those who were dismissive and defensive and tried to shut the conversation down?

"'Didn’t we congregate to challenge a certain theory and, if we could, drop it?” Christian Drosten asked with notable irritation in a terse February 9th 2020 email to the other members of the group: 'Who came up with this story in the beginning? Are we working on debunking our own conspiracy theory?' Do these sound like the words of an innocent man? Not much, especially if we consider that before this email emerged thanks to an American FOIA request, Drosten had insisted in a sworn statement to a German court that he 'had no interest in steering the suspicion about the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in a certain direction. In particular, I had and I have no personal interest in ruling out the so-called laboratory thesis.' No interest in steering the suspicion in a certain direction?! How is that consistent with 'Didn’t we congregate to challenge a certain theory, and if we could, drop it'?

"Drosten, as discussed in my ‘Why Fauci, not Drosten?‘, has links to the German-Chinese virology lab in Wuhan and its German Co-Director Ulf Dittmer. As seen in the below photo, a 2015 German-Government-sponsored virology symposium in Berlin brought together not only Drosten and the bat coronavirus specialist Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Institute of Virology [WIV], but also both the German and the Chinese Co-Directors of the German-Chinese lab, Ulf Dittmer and Dongliang Yang, and both the then- and apparently even the current Directors of the WIV to boot! 

a) Wang Yanyi? b) Shi Zhengli c) Christian Drosten d) Ulf Dittmer e) Dongliang Yang f) Chen Xinwen. 

"The [WIV] Director at the time, Chen Xinwen, is the small, buck-toothed man with the blue tie in the photo. The young woman with the long black hair in the lower left-hand corner appears to be current WIV director Wang Yanyi, although Wang is not listed as a participant in the event programme. 

"In January 2020, moreover, Drosten told the Germany daily Die Berliner Zeitung that he had learned about the supposedly novel virus in Wuhan from virologist colleagues in the city before any infections had even been officially reported!

"If a virus engineered in Montana is supposed to have somehow gotten to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, even though the WIV was not even a part of the US-funded CREID project which is alleged to have made the connection, why could it not have gotten to the German-Chinese virology laboratory on the other side of the Yangtze? (Moreover, the CREID project – which is in fact more a network than a project – was not even launched until 2020: several months after the official start of the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan.)

"As the below map from Science magazine makes clear, the campuses of the Wuhan Institute of Virology are in fact nowhere near the area of the initial cluster of Covid-19 cases in Wuhan. The German-Chinese lab, by contrast, is right in the cluster. It is located at Union Hospital, designated by number 6 in the map. The Chinese co-sponsor of the lab, Tongji Medical College, is located virtually at the very epicentre of the outbreak: roughly one kilometre to the north of Tongji Hospital, which is designated by number 5 in the map.... 

[W]hat do we know about the research which was being conducted at the German-Chinese virology lab in Wuhan itself? Not much. In September 2021, one Reinhard G. used a website dedicated to posing questions to German parliamentarians in order to ask the German member of the European Parliament Christian Ehler whether gain-of-function research was being conducted at the German-Chinese lab. Ehler is chair of the EU Parliament’s Panel on the Future of Science and Technology (STOA). Reinhard G. did not receive an answer. Ehler’s team merely noted that they did not know.

"But why are no German journalists or commentators, many of whom have shown great interest in DEFUSE and CREID, demanding to know? 

"The DEFUSE proposal was not funded. The CREID network is funded by the US Government, but the Wuhan Institute of Virology is not part of it and it only got underway well after the initial outbreak of Covid-19 in Wuhan. The German-Chinese lab was launched in 2017 and it is funded by the German Government. It grew out of a German-Chinese joint virology project, TRR60, which was publicly-funded for a full decade from 2009 to 2018 and which, as I have shown here, proudly featured the Wuhan Institute of Virology as a partner.

"Why should the world not know as much about the German-Chinese lab and TRR60 as it knows about DEFUSE and CREID? Where are the Freedom of Information requests? Why is the German Government being spared them? If anyone asked, at least it could say no, which would be revealing in its own right. We know that the German Government funds gain-of-function experiments, because none other than Christian Drosten was coordinator of a multi-part publicly-funded RAPID project which includes them.... Stefan Pöhlmann was, incidentally, Director of one of the RAPID sub-projects.

"Of course, if one only has US information, one will end up telling a US story. But if a foreign power really did have a hand in the escape or release of an engineered virus in Wuhan, then prima facie Germany is the far likelier suspect."

Read more: https://brownstone.org/articles/germanys-role-in-what-happened/

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Shoddy scholarship in White Rural Rage (II)

The book White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy "reeks of tell-tale signs of being written first and finding facts second," says this researcher.."Only after they settled on a salacious title, it seems, did they go out and try to find what they already agreed to see, with little to no attention paid to whether any of it was true."

New Book on Rural America Started with a False Conclusion, Then Looked for Evidence | Daily Yonder | Nicholas F. Jacobs:

March 6, 2024 - "A new book on 'white rural rage' argues that rural Americans are the most racist, xenophobic, conspiracist, anti-democratic, and violent “geodemographic” subgroup of Americans out there. The authors, Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman, say that their book is driven by data and that even if you don’t like their conclusions the evidence is clear. The problem with this book is not a lack of citations; they 'bring the receipts,' as they like to boast. The problem is that those receipts belong in the trash.... The book reeks of tell-tale signs of being written first and finding facts second. Only after they settled on a salacious title, it seems, did they go out and try to find what they already agreed to see, with little to no attention paid to whether any of it was true.... I offer a more comprehensive list of each survey and poll they use here, and briefly describe my concerns below. 

"The first problem is that the vast majority of data lacks any consistent definition of what they mean by the word “rural.” This hole gives the authors license to pick and choose various points from whatever surveys they want.... Consider, as just one of several examples, a method by the polling firm IPSOS, which informs work from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) that Schaller and Waldman use to prove that rural folks are distinctively drawn to QAnon conspiracies. IPSOS defines rural as any resident living in a county that is not a part of any Metropolitan Statistical Area (a place with a dense urban center of 50,000 people or more). The Census, however, estimates that 54% of all rural people actually live inside those 'metropolitan' areas — areas excluded by the IPSOS definition. Consequently, this result about 'rural America” is drawn from a survey that excludes a majority of rural residents. One wonders if the authors cared to think about what this actually means for their results.... 

"Second, ... Schaller and Waldman seem to willfully neglect any concern over sample sizes. More often than not, the surveys that inform this 'data-driven' account simply do not get enough respondents who are even from rural areas, however defined. Yes, survey outlets will report out what 'rural' individuals said, but a closer look shows that those rural estimates often draw on just a few hundred people.... Consider a poll by the Institute of Politics, which Waldman and Schaller reference to show that rural Americans are the most likely to 'take up arms against the government.' That claim depends on just 220 rural residents and 290 city residents. As such, if 35% of rural residents agree, and 29% of city residents agree, probabilistically they are indistinguishable from one another. Or consider another poll by Marist University, which Schaller and Waldman say proves the point that rural residents are more likely to believe in nonexistent voter fraud. That conclusion depends on a grand total of 167 rural individuals. Not only are the margins of error too big to be meaningful, you might wonder, can you even get a representative portrayal of rural America with that many people. 

"Because most surveys are done to get a representative picture of the national population, even when they do have adequate sample sizes, seldom do the rural respondents in the poll actually represent the demographics of rural America..... In the last seven years, I’ve surveyed over 25,000 rural residents. My experience is that the first to respond and fill that 'rural' quota are older and more conservative than average. Getting young rural folks is hard, and most surveys might only have a handful.... This demographic imbalance exists even in high-quality surveys, because most surveys are designed to make claims about the national population. Surveys weights are therefore used to adjust samples to mirror national demographic patterns. In the case of the American National Election Study, for example, this means that any estimate about rural residents inflates the voices of the most elderly residents (65+), because ANES weights create an incorrect demographic snapshot of rural America, with 30% more elderly residents than what the U.S. Census says should exist. 

"Only two surveys in the entire book conform to basic standards of survey research and even attempt to try and present an accurate picture of rural America: a 2017 study from The Washington Post and Kaiser Family Foundation (1,070 rural residents) and a 2018 report from the Pew Research Center (2,085 rural residents).... Of course, not even these are perfect. Because it focuses on rural communities, the WAPO/KFF study only includes 303 urban and 307 suburban respondents – small samples. Consider what this means when interpreting who thinks that 'immigrants today strengthen our country,' one of the questions Schaller and Waldman use to show just how xenophobic rural people allegedly are. Once you account for the margin of error (which Schaller and Waldman never report once in the book), rural residents actually believe the same thing as suburban residents; indeed, one question down (remember cherry-picking?), the survey shows that rural residents are just as likely as urban residents to say that 'most immigrants coming to the U.S. in the last 10 years are doing enough to adapt to the American way of life.' Can you find the rural rage? 

"The final problem is the worst one because it exists even if you account for problems of defining rurality and getting large, representative samples. Throughout the book, Schaller and Waldman solely rely on group comparisons – a true indication that their analysis is driven more by a desire to confirm one’s beliefs than to find real evidence.... Nowhere in this book is there any attempt to understand what motivates rural people, in particular, to think one thing or another. Are these really rural problems, or are they the product of some other demographic characteristic such as age, race, or gender? Is the 'rage' supposedly felt in rural areas really different than elsewhere? We just cannot tell from group averages alone.  

"[T]he way we would really test why certain groups behave a certain way – be it conspiracies or vaccines — is to compare individuals within and between those groups so that we can account for the multiple differences that they might have in common. Schaller and Waldman themselves never dig this deep.... But I got some of their data and did the work. Using the individual-level data provided by the 2018 Pew study, for example, I tested Schaller and Waldman’s claims that rural residents are distinctively 'xenophobic.' At a group level, 57% (+/- 1.1) of rural residents compared to 35 % (+/- 0.68) of urbanites, agree that a 'growing number of newcomers from other countries threatens traditional American customs and values.' I relied on widely used and understood tools of statistical inference (i.e., a regression model) to understand what best explains a person’s response to that question. Ruralness? Maybe. But maybe they answer that way because of age, sex, level of education, party identification, income, race, some religious beliefs, or all of the above.

"Here’s the model’s results. Bottom line: when we include those characteristics in a model that also accounts for where someone lives, geographic differences disappear. Rural residents are statistically no more likely to think 'xenophobic' beliefs on account of their rurality. Attitudes here are almost entirely attributable to partisan identity. Being rural ... is statistically meaningless, because what drives those group averages is solely a function of Republican partisan identity. That is, rural residents are thinking the same way about that issue as urban and suburban residents.... [I]f the goal of White Rural Rage is to say that the threat to American democracy is emanating from the heartland, the data just do not support that idea."

Read more: https://dailyyonder.com/commentary-white-rural-rage-which-came-first-the-title-or-the-research/2024/03/06/

The Media's New Favorite Topic: 'White Rural Rage' | Matt Walsh | March 4, 2024:

See also: Shoddy scholarship in White Rural Rage (I) 

Radio Canada report shows Quebec teens rushed into sex changes

A recent Radio-Canada investigation shows young teens in Quebec with gender dysphoria being fast-tracked into hormone treatment and surgery. 

Quebec teens being rushed into gender transitions, CBC investigation finds | True North |  Cosmin Dzsurdzsa: 

March 7, 2024 - "Young teens in Quebec dealing with gender dysphoria are being rushed into irreversible gender transitions, despite activist claims to the contrary. An investigation by Radio-Canada, CBC’s French language arm, revealed how 14-year-old girls in the province can quickly obtain a prescription for cross sex hormones, without a medical referral or the consent of their parents.... Quebec has no minimum age for gender transitions, although trans-identified patients must wait until they are 16 to get double mastectomies and 18 to get genital surgery. From 14 and onward, parental consent is not required for one to be prescribed puberty blockers and hormones.

"Radio-Canada sent a young 14-year-old actress with a hidden camera into a private gender clinic to test the system. She received a prescription in minutes. This teen was able to get her prescription without the presence of her parents or a referral from a doctor, psychologist or therapist. The girl was asked to review a form containing all the side effects of medical transition, before then seeing a doctor. The girl told the doctor that she was diagnosed with an eating disorder and became convinced she was born in the wrong body after watching videos on the internet.... 

"[T]he doctor proceeded to ask the teen if her parents supported her transitioning, and if she had considered surgery, '(like a) mastectomy, removing the chest.' The doctor also asked the child if she wanted to preserve her fertility. 'I understand that it’s a bit far off for you, at 14… Is fertility something you want to preserve before you start?' 'Er… no. I always knew I didn’t want children,' replied the girl, to which the doctor said “okay.' After just nine minutes, the girl was given a prescription for cross sex hormones.... When asked by Radio-Canada to comment, the doctor said, 'a medical consultation is not evaluated in terms of duration, but rather in terms of the quality of the exchange of information between the patient and the healthcare professional'.... 

"Multiple detransitioners from Quebec said they feel they were rushed into irreversible transitions.... The first detransitioner, a 24-year-old woman who used the pseudonym Clara, said she dealt with fragile mental health as well as self-esteem issues as a teenager. She was exposed to gender ideology on social media site Tumblr, and was subsequently encouraged to transition by a 'gender-affirming” psychologist..... 'Clara’s' parents were told to begin transitioning their daughter right away, as otherwise, she may commit suicide.... At 15, 'Clara' was placed on puberty blockers and then cross sex hormones. She then received a double mastectomy at 17.... She has since detransitioned and is living as a woman, but with permanent changes to her body.... 

"Jane Rocheleau-Matte ... another detransitioner featured in the report investigation ... explained that she was a tomboy as a teenager, and discovered gender ideology on streaming platform Twitch during the pandemic and thought it was 'something that resonates with me, a girl who thinks she’s more masculine.' At 16, she began taking cross sex hormones, and soon after, was green lit for a double mastectomy..... Rocheleau-Matte says she began having regrets the moment she took off her bandages. But as she would find out, detransitioning is harder than transitioning. 'They told me I had to wait two or three years and have psychological follow-up for over a year,' she said. Rocheleau-Matte found this surprising because 'before they removed my breasts, they didn’t ask me for psychological follow-up.... 

"Like other jurisdictions, Quebec is seeing dramatic increases in child transitions amid gender ideology being rampant in schools and on social media. Approximately 1100 gender dysphoric teens are currently being treated in the province’s two main gender clinics. The number of girls between the ages of 14 and 17 being prescribed testosterone increased by 870% in 10 years.... 18 Quebec girls had their breasts removed in 2023, and while that number may be small, there were no double mastectomies performed on minors in 2017.

"Reactions from the trans community were mixed.... Michelle Blanc, one of the most well-known transgender women in Quebec, said in aninterview with CHOI Radio X she was 'profoundly shocked' by what she saw. 'We have gone from it being hard to change genders to it being too easy,' said Blanc, who added that 'ideology must leave therapy.' 

"Beatrice Robichau, a prominent Quebec transgender business woman, told Radio X  that while she was disappointed that the documentary made it seem like the majority of teen transitions end in regret, she also believes the a hormone presription after a nine-minute consultation is unreasonable. Robichau wants the College of Physicians to get involved and reprimand doctors who rush kids into transition without following proper protocols. 

"Left-wing trans activist Celeste Trianon meanwhile accused Radio-Canada of 'platforming junk science,' claiming that 'by further platforming anti-trans junk science, Radio-Canada is granting a voice of authority to these bad faith actors who are attempting to erase us, to dehumanize us, to eliminate us from public life.'"

Read more: https://tnc.news/2024/03/07/quebec-teens-rushed-into-gender-transitions/

Radio-Canada report (in French): https://ici.radio-canada.ca/recit-numerique/8610/transition-genre-testoterone-choix-dysphorie-sante-mentale

The authoritarian left is not happy with the CBC | True North: Candace Malcolm Show | March 7, 2024: 

Canadian premiers oppose carbon tax hike

Premiers of seven of the eight affected provinces have come out in opposition to the Trudeau government's planned April 1 carbon tax increase.  

Maritimes beg Trudeau for more carbon tax carve outs despite relief not afforded Westerners | Western Standard | Shaun Polczer:

March 12, 2024 - "Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey and PEI boss Dennis King are both begging Ottawa to consider delaying the proposed April 1 increase to $80 per tonne.... In an almost Dickensian letter to the PM, Furey on Monday begged.... 'I respectfully request that you consider pausing the implementation of the April 1st carbon tax increase, at least until inflation stabilizes, interest rates lower and related economic pressures on the cost of living sufficiently cool' 

"It comes days after PEI Premier Dennis King ... wrote in his own missive to the PM that the 23% increase next month would hurt 'Islanders' by adding 3.5 cents to the cost of a litre of gasoline and bringing the total to 23 cents.... 

"New Brunswick’s Blaine Higgs ... joined in the chorus of Atlantic premiers although he was more forceful in his condemnation.... 'Since imposing his carbon tax six years ago, New Brunswickers have been subject to brutal increases every single year. These make the cost of everyday items such as food, fuel and groceries more expensive, driving up the cost of living for everyone,' he said. 'Even if he won’t cancel the tax outright, he can stop his plan to impose even more harm on New Brunswickers and Canadians by halting the planned tax increase.'"

Read more: https://www.westernstandard.news/atlantic/newfoundland-pei-beg-trudeau-for-more-carbon-tax-carve-outs-despite-relief-not-afforded-westerners/53059

Trudeau calls out 'short-term thinker' politicians as some premiers urge him to drop carbon price hike | CBC News | Catharine Tunney March 13, 2024 - 

"As a growing number of premiers urge the federal government to scrap an upcoming increase to the federal carbon tax, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pushed back on what he called 'short-term thinker' politicians and defended his government's deeply divisive policy ... during a news conference in Calgary Wednesday.... [M[ost premiers have called on the government to either scrap the program or pause the increase scheduled for April 1.... He's also facing attacks from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who said he'll force multiple votes in Parliament next week to stop what he's calling 'Trudeau's April Fools' tax hike'....

"Trudeau showed no signs of bowing to pressure from the premiers or Poilievre. 'That's an easy thing for short-term thinker politicians to say, "Oh, we'll get rid of the price." They don't talk about the fact that they're also going to get rid of that cheque, the Canada carbon rebate, that puts more money in the pockets of the vast majority of Canadians,' he said....

"At the beginning of next month, the carbon price is scheduled to increase from $65 to $80 per tonne. The federal policy — which includes both a tax on fossil fuels and rebates paid directly to households — was introduced by the Liberal government in 2019 and is designed as a financial incentive to encourage people and businesses to cut their consumption of fossil fuels and transition to greener forms of energy. Canadians living in the eight provinces with the federal carbon tax receive quarterly rebate payments which vary depending on the province and the size of household.

"On Tuesday, Liberal Newfoundland Premier Andrew Furey shared an open letter to the prime minister saying that while his government is 'deeply invested in environmental sustainability,' the scheduled increase will add to residents' financial burdens. Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston also wrote to Trudeau urging him 'cancel the carbon tax before any more financial damage is done.'

"So far, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan — which says it will no longer remit the money it owes for the carbon price on natural gas, as required by law — Alberta, Ontario, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador have weighed in, calling for Trudeau to pause or cancel the coming increase. British Columbia, Quebec and the Northwest Territories follow their own carbon-pricing mechanisms ... and are exempt from the federal program."

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-premiers-carbon-tax-1.7142445

Premiers call on Trudeau to cancel spring carbon tax increase | CBC News: The National | March 13, 2024: