'They can't afford to live here': Deep red Montana town faces DOGE fallout

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27. key summary

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Earlier this month, eastern Montana’s Republican U.S. Rep. Matt Rosendale included an amendment in a federal appropriations bill to strip research funding from Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, a key U.S. pathogen research facility, because of its prior work researching coronaviruses.
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While groups of right-wingers have for years now blamed China and some U.S. officials for purposely releasing the virus on the public, the fervor over Rocky Mountain Laboratories and Rosendale’s subsequent amendment appear to stem from an article published Oct. 31 by the Daily Mail, a British tabloid, with the headline: “REVEALED: Anthony Fauci-run lab in MONTANA experimented with coronavirus strain shipped in from Wuhan a year BEFORE Covid pandemic began.”

Their own rep wanted the lab shut down, based on an absurd conspiracy theory pushed by a British tabloid and echoed by Fox news.