If the Choice in 2024 Were So Obvious, the Election Wouldn’t Be So Close

From 2024:

Opinion | If the Choice in 2024 Were So Obvious, the Election Wouldn’t Be So Close - The New York Times

"There are many styles of Harris-Walz signage in my lovely university-town neighborhood, but the one that’s stickiest in my mind comes with a one-word slogan: “Harris-Walz 2024: Obviously.”

It’s sticky because it gets at something fundamental and fundamentally strange about Trump-era America. The divisions in our country are resilient, the reversion to a 50-50 split seemingly inevitable even amid plague and war and protest. Yet in those regions of America that officially have a professional commitment to debate — the realms of academic and journalistic argument — things are still mostly as they were when Donald Trump first emerged: To oppose him is completely obvious, obligatory, a matter of simple common sense.

Except that it can’t be that obvious or we wouldn’t be where we are. So let’s take one last survey of why some waverers might not yet be sold on Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, by returning to where this all began: The world of 2016, when Americans normally disinclined to vote for liberals were first informed that there was no other reasonable choice.

In that world, the Hillary Clinton campaign offered the country an implicit bargain. The promise was not some sort of dramatic bipartisan moderation to meet the Trumpist threat; on policy Clinton’s campaign was somewhat more left-wing than Barack Obama’s White House.

Rather the promise was that even if you disagreed with liberalism’s elites on policy, you could trust them in three crucial ways: They would avoid insanity, they would maintain stability, and they would display far greater intelligence and competence than Trump and his hangers-on.

The promise of sanity was broken first. Under Trumpian and especially Covidian conditions, the culture of elite liberalism lurched toward fanaticism, embracing radical and fanciful ideas to a degree that I had not imagined possible.

At the time some liberals resisted this lurch, but many others fell silent under pressures that felt almost McCarthyite in their threats to livelihoods and reputations.

Today more liberals concede that things got a bit kooky for a while. But the tendency is still to cast the high tide of wokeness as just a silly season whose effects were hardly comparable to right-wing depredations.

To me, though, the farther that we get from that moment, the more the remarkable the damage looks. For instance: After the liberal establishment was radicalized by the killing of George Floyd into a temporary repudiation of normal policing on “antiracist” grounds, America experienced a dramatic wave of homicides, on a scale unique among developed countries in the Covid era, in which thousands and thousands of people died unnecessarily.

Or again, America in that season mainstreamed experimental and unproven chemical and surgical treatments on thousands of gender-dysphoric young people, with the enthusiastic support of the medical establishment and then the Biden administration, because people with a normal degree of skepticism were afraid of being called transphobes.

Even before you get into harder-to-quantify issues of intellectual corruption, damage to schools and social life and mental health, there is a basic physical toll here — on “bodies,” to use the language that some progressives favor — that undermines the liberal claim to represent sanity against populist derangement.

And it undermines those claims even if the craziness has passed for now, because we could see how a figure like Kamala Harris behaved during that period. Is she a true believer in every notion she endorsed in the 2020 campaign? Perhaps not. But neither is there any good reason to think that she would offer principled resistance if liberalism entered a fevered state again.

Then alongside sanity at home, there is the failure of liberalism to deliver stability abroad. When Trump was first elected president I expected a period of testing — cross-border incursions, terrorist violence, a coordination between our adversaries against a wobbling Pax Americana.

All of that happened — but under Joe Biden’s leadership, not Trump’s. The position of the United States is more parlous today than when Trump left office, the risk of a genuine world war has intensified, and the cost of destabilization is already measured in thousands upon thousands of dead.

I don’t think all this reflects terrible case-by-case decision making by the Biden administration. But in the aggregate you can see a severe weakness in liberal internationalism right now — a tendency to extend itself rhetorically without the material investments required to back those promissory notes, a limpness in its relationship to allies who take our patience and protection for granted, a difficulty figuring out how to negotiate with enemies after you’ve spent so much time denouncing them. (We are clearly paying the price for missing a 2023-era window for an armistice in Ukraine.)

One might prefer well-meaning weakness to the Trumpian alternative of an amoral president seeking retrenchment, surrounded by foreign policy hands trying to use his mercurial persona to keep our rivals off balance. But it’s possible the Trumpian formula yielded better results for a reason, and it’s not at all clear that Harris is ready for the tests that Biden’s failing foreign policy will hand on to her.

Especially since the final promise of 2016-era liberalism — its claim to have a profound advantage in competence and intelligence — is not exactly vindicated by the Harris-Walz ticket.

I understand that we are close enough to the election that this last point will be furiously rejected. But notwithstanding the great rally around her after Biden’s bow-out, the Democratic nominee for president is still the Dan Quayle-like figure that almost everybody saw just a little while ago, still vague on policy and painful in extended interviews, still carrying a record as a vice president that inspires little confidence in her abilities.

By comparison Hillary Clinton was clearly a more serious policymaker, Joe Biden was clearly better at the work of politics, and both were more experienced in ways that matter to a chief executive. And Harris’s selection of running mate was a telling double-down on mediocrity: She picked a partner who would cast no shade on her own capabilities, even when there were clear political incentives to choose otherwise.

Better mediocrity than Trump — except that in 2024, unlike 2016, the Republican ticket has the ballast of a running mate who is capable of going multiple rounds in any format (I may have a personal bias in JD Vance’s favor, but I think his performance in interviews and the V.P. debate have been extremely effective), and the fervent involvement of the man responsible for America’s most successful automotive startup and rockets that are the wonder of the world." 

Links - 1st April 2026 (Mark Carney)

Carson Jerema: Chairman Carney is here to take over the economy - "instead of outlining a plan that would actually increase exports, Carney’s speech at the University of Ottawa recycled nearly all of the themes he’s been talking about since he entered the Liberal leadership race in the winter. He talked of “hinge” moments and the need for making “tough choices,” about how we live in a “dangerous and divided” world and about how the “long process” of deepening economic integration with America is “now over.” When Carney said Canada’s “economic strategy needs to change dramatically,” he really meant it needn’t change much at all. The prime minister can talk about his government’s “60-day red-tape review,” but there is no plan to free the energy industry from the Impact Assessment Act, the tanker ban or the emissions cap.  He can say that, “Budget 2025 will balance the operating deficit in three years,” but that ignores the fact that the true deficit could increase to infinite levels based on how the government defines “operating” and “capital” budgets. Liberal House Leader Steven MacKinnon has already dismissed as “ludicrous” the Conservative party’s demands for supporting the budget, which include keeping the deficit at $42 billion.  What was most clear from Carney’s speech, like pretty much every speech he gives, is that he sees an expanded role for the government, and himself, over the economy. So while he acknowledges that Canada has been gifted with the “third-largest reserves of oil and the fourth-largest reserves of natural gas in the world,” he is almost entirely uninterested in those reserves. He trumpeted a “foundational agreement” with the European Union, but that agreement places a heavy emphasis on “renewables,” “low carbon technologies” and transitioning “away from fossil fuels in energy systems.”  So perhaps the Liberals will behave differently than under the Trudeau years, but they will continue to grow the government in much the same way, perhaps while dating fewer pop stars. The Major Projects Office is tasked with streamlining approvals for infrastructure projects, but only those that meet the government’s approval and numerous requirements, including contributing “to clean growth and Canada’s climate goals.” Carney cited our changing relationship with the United States as the reason for going in a “new” direction, but his views on that relationship cannot be trusted.  The prime minister won the spring election by campaigning on the lie that U.S. President Donald Trump’s public musings about annexing Canada were a serious threat, and the claim that he was best positioned to contain any economic damage from the tariff fiend in the White House. So far, Carney has little to show for it, other than what appears to be a cozy personal relationship with Trump.  While the Americans may not always be the reliable partners we wish them to be, they are still the best option for global leadership. Yes, even with Trump in power. However, Carney talked Wednesday of “re-engaging” with China, a power whose intentions are clearly malevolent, which has interfered in multiple Canadian elections and whose military ambitions are a direct threat to the western world.  Aligning with China will not alleviate Canada’s relationship problems with the Americans, but it will put our security and prosperity at risk... The reasons behind Canada’s middling economic performance are well understood, and it has nothing to do with a lack of government spending, even though Carney bragged about the government’s “fiscal capacity” on Wednesday night. No, this country is overtaxed and over-regulated. Would-be investors are mired in uncertainty.  Rather than, say, rewriting regulations to get critical mineral mines up and running in less than the current 10-15 years, no government funding required, the Liberals would prefer to subsidize electric vehicle battery plants that may not be economically viable on their own, leaving Canada vulnerable to auto companies moving production to the U.S., which is exactly what is happening.  At the core of Carney’s plans is putting government at the centre of the economy — to build homes, to make cars, to invest in artificial intelligence, to pick and choose what projects companies should build.  The free market works because, through prices, it communicates information about scarcity and availability, about which products are in demand and which are oversupplied. It accounts for the countless decisions made by individuals and businesses every day, decisions that no one person or government department is capable of understanding in real time. This is why government is best left to creating clear and limited rules for markets to operate in, but instead Carney believes that he, alone, can run the economy."

Carney government should retire misleading ‘G7’ talking point on economic growth - "In the past, this talking point was frequently used by prime ministers Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau and their senior cabinet officials. And it’s apparently survived the transition to the Carney government, as the finance minister earlier this year triumphantly tweeted that Canada’s economic growth was “among the strongest in the G7.”  But here's the problem. Canada’s rate of economic growth relative to the rest of the G7 is almost completely irrelevant as an indicator of economic strength because it’s heavily influenced by Canada’s much faster rate of population growth. In other words, Canada’s faster pace of overall economic growth (measured by GDP) compared to most other developed countries has not been due to Canadians becoming more productive and generating more income for their families, but rather primarily because there are more people in Canada working and producing things.  In reality, if you use the more appropriate measure for measuring economic wellbeing and living standards—growth in per-person GDP—the happy narrative about Canada’s performance simply falls apart.  According to a recent study published by the Fraser Institute, if you simply look at total economic growth in the G7 in recent years (2020-24) without reference to population, Canada does indeed look good. Canada’s economy has had the second-most total economic growth in the G7 behind only the United States.  However, if you make a simple adjustment for differences in population change over this same time, a completely different picture emerges. Canada’s per-person GDP actually declined by 2 per cent from 2020 to 2024. This is the worst five-year decline since the Great Depression nearly a century ago. And on this much more important measure of wellbeing, Canada goes from second in the G7 to dead last.  Due to Canada’s rapid population growth in recent years, fuelled by record-high levels of immigration, aggregate GDP growth is quite simply a misleading economic indicator for comparing our performance to other countries that aren’t experiencing similar increases in the size of their labour markets. As such, it’s long past time for politicians to retire misleading talking points about Canada’s “strong” growth performance in the G7.  After making a simple adjustment to account for Canada’s rapidly growing population, it becomes clear that the government has nothing to brag about. In fact, Canada is a growth laggard and has been for a long time, with living standards that have actually declined appreciably over the last half-decade."

Pierre Poilievre on X - "No wonder Carney wants to fire the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Canada’s top Budget Watchdog today published a brutal report exposing how Carney’s costly credit card budget cooks the books, doubles the deficit and promises fake savings. Canadians can’t afford the cost of Carney."

tobi lutke on X - "What you are actually doing here is to bribe nokia to put these jobs into Canada by paying hundreds of thousands of dollars per job from taxpayer money. What this does is to lower the cost basis of nokia per employee. This has been going on for decades, called FDI which all civil servants think is a good thing. I spent a lot of time explaining to civil servants in ottawa that its not good for our economy that American and Oversees branch offices can employ Canadians at half the cost to all the canadian companies around them due to these subsidies. We should not do them at all, they are toxic, at least in the tech sector.   It's never meat to be this way, but the situation that very often arises is: It's strictly worse inside of Canada to be a Canadian company compared to a company headquartered everywhere else.   This is a bad situation, because the fruits of the subsidized labor will accrue to the wealth of other countries and not Canada. It's tax payer money invested into locking up scarce high tech talent in jobs where they no longer contribute to the Canadian economy directly. Why"
Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 on X - "This is the most ominous thing I've read in 2025.  This is the CEO of Shopify, Canada's largest tech company. It's almost as valuable as the Royal Bank.  He's pretty clearly saying Mark Carney's corporate welfare strategy of bribing foreign companies to open up branch plants here undermines homegrown success stories like his. Carney is paying foreign companies to compete against Canadian companies.  Shopify has shown it can win in the free market; but Carney's World Economic Forum style of "stakeholder capitalism" prefers to artificially choose other winners, by giving them  billions.  I'm so sorry to say it, but I predict that Shopify will relocate to Austin or Miami in 2026."

PM Mark Carney's housing photo op faked, Privy Council Office admits | Toronto Sun - "Newly released documents confirm the construction site used as a venue for Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Sept. 14 press conference announcing a new federal housing agency was nothing more than an elaborate — and costly — stage for the cameras... This prompted widespread criticism, with many accusing the government of erecting a “Potemkin village” for the benefit of the cameras."

Mark Carney leaves the AFN meeting early and immediately faces backlash from an Indigenous Chief : r/CanadianConservative - "Also left the House early during question period to attend the AFN meeting. Guy is so busy he can never stick around for questions."
"His personal attacks in question period were deplorable.  When it became obvious that he has no other response to the PBO calling him out yet again his chief of staff must have told him to scram ASAP.  Libs looked very weak and pathetic in QP yesterday on the whole. Too bad most voters don't even watch the soundbites let alone the whole thing."

John Ivison: Carney’s ‘commerce-first’ foreign policy spares no care for atrocities - "Even Justin Trudeau’s own one-time foreign affairs minister, the late Marc Garneau, thought the former prime minister foreign policy prioritized style over substance — a perception that he said weakened Canada’s standing on the international stage. It was to be expected that Prime Minister Mark Carney would attempt to distance himself from the man who took an ill-fated passage to India in February 2018, replete with braided sherwanis and bhangra dancing. It was a trip that played into the narrative that Trudeau was not a serious leader... Carney appears to have secured up to $70 billion of investment in critical minerals, ports and artificial intelligence from the Emiratis. The release announcing the good news contained a paragraph on the ongoing massacres in Sudan, where both leaders condemned attacks against civilians by the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese Armed Forces, and called for an immediate ceasefire in the civil war that is devastating that benighted country. So far, so ho hum. Except, as a recent report by the Montreal-based Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights makes clear , UAE is not just another disinterested observer in Sudan’s misery: it is a key architect of it. After the popular uprising against the dictator Omar Al-Bashir in April 2019, the new civilian government was undermined by UAE in favour of the Rapid Support Force (RSF) — the former dreaded Janjaweed — under the command of Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti. The Emiratis covertly armed the RSF, the United Nations alleges, in the face of warnings that the force would commit ethnically targeted mass killings, as it did in 2003. The report, authored by Mutasim Ali and Yonah Diamond, says there is “substantial evidence” linking the UAE to the RSF, including informants who confirm the Emirates has supplied heavy weaponry, armoured vehicles, munitions and drones through Chad and Kenya. The report pointed to an article in the New York Times in June that alleged direct communications lines between Hermedti and Sheikh bin Zayed. The key motivation for the Emirates appears to be gold, which has emerged as the key conflict commodity. Control over gold-mining operations and trade has become a central driver of the civil war, the report said, with 50 to 80 percent of the 70-million tonnes produced annually smuggled abroad, principally to the UAE. The word “genocide” has been thrown around with abandon in recent months, but what is taking place in Sudan merits its use — namely, specific acts carried out with the intent to destroy in whole, on in part, an ethnic or racial group, in this case, the non-Arab population of Darfur. The RSF captured the city of El Fasher last month and satellite images have since shown RSF fighters burying bodies in large numbers in an apparent effort to hide the evidence of mass slaughter. The Emiratis deny the allegations but have not provided any evidence to the contrary, particularly on the 85 cargo flights that are said to have transferred arms. The UAE has directly and indirectly enabled the RSF and its allies to carry out war crimes and crimes against humanity, the report says. “The UAE bears complicity in these crimes,” it concluded, adding it is breaking the Genocide Convention in doing so. At a press conference to highlight efforts to create an all-party parliamentary coalition to call for action, former justice minister Irwin Cotler said the latest tragedy highlights the international “indifference, inaction and impunity” since the last genocide attempt in Darfur 22 years ago."
Time to sanction Israel, since we know "Zionists" are behind everything wrong in the world

Kelly McParland: Carney buries Trudeau's 'feminist foreign policy' - "Much as he’d like to concentrate on his plans to transform Canada, Mark Carney still finds it necessary to explain to people that he’s not Justin Trudeau. Weekending in Johannesburg on one of his regular missions to drum up business, he found himself being queried about his government’s dedication to gender equity. That was a big concern of the previous Liberal regime, but one that’s had a lower billing with the Carney camp... “We have that aspect to our foreign policy, but I wouldn’t describe our foreign policy as feminist foreign policy,” the prime minister replied. “Those are different points, but related.” The remarks were reported as a sharp shift away from a decade of Liberal policies that saw gender equality as a core principle. The Trudeau government never spelled out in detail exactly how the policy worked, but the former prime minister and his top lieutenants regularly declared their dedication to feminist values at home and abroad. I expect Carney would strongly object to any suggestion he’s anti-feminist; instead, he was making the point that demanding progress on feminist priorities doesn’t supersede all other interests in Canadian public policy... The focus of his travels has centred mainly on economic issues and the upheaval in world relations: what to do about Trump, what to do about Ukraine and Russia, what to do about China, what to do about Canada’s chronic status as a large but underperforming economy... It’s been like that for much of the Carney agenda. A record of stops and starts, advances and retreats. He won a pledge for $70 billion in investments from the United Arab Emirates last week; yet at the same time a big meeting on interprovincial trade indicated Canadian premiers still don’t quite grasp the concept of a barrier-free country. A “mutual recognition agreement” reached in Yellowknife heralded supposed advances in cutting barriers, but excluded food, alcohol, tobacco and plants, and “does not currently apply to how a good is sold, or who may sell or purchase it.” A separate memorandum of understanding was reached on transportation issues, a key barrier to progress, but wasn’t released pending further discussions."

Lorne Gunter: Liberals' hatred of Alberta and oil obvious in major projects snub - "Both the CBC and the Globe and Mail were given advanced copies of Carney’s list of Round Two projects. And like the first round he released in September, it not only doesn’t include a pipeline from Alberta to the West Coast, it doesn’t include any projects in Alberta at all. To add insult to this oversight, the Ksi Lisims LNG pipeline that is supposed to be included in Thursday’s announcement will not take any natural gas from Alberta to an LNG terminal on Pearse Island north of Prince Rupert. The only gas will be from B.C. Could it be that Alberta’s oil and gas are being deliberately targeted? There have been recent reports that the Liberals’ environmental caucus (made up mostly of the most radical “green” members of Justin Trudeau’s cabinet and caucus) have been upset with Prime Minister Carney’s decision to delay the implementation of Ottawa’s electric vehicle (EV) mandate for at least a few years. A move to landlock Alberta’s resources could be a bone thrown to the eco-caucus so they don’t create problems within the Liberal party. Such a move would also not be a stretch for Carney, who was himself an environmental ambassador for the United Nations before becoming Liberal leader. One of the members of the Liberals’ “green” caucus, Steven Guilbeault (who endorsed Carney for leader), did all he could to shut down the resource industry while he was Trudeau’s extremist environment minister. Whenever you’re talking about the Liberals, remember that nothing motivates them more than thoughts of re-election. They have 20 seats in B.C., just two in Alberta. What’s more, the Liberals’ 20 B.C. seats are mostly in the “green”-obsessed Lower Mainland. An oil and bitumen pipeline from Alberta to Prince Rupert would anger Liberal voters in B.C., without winning them any votes in Alberta. Most of Carney’s high-profile projects, especially in the first round, were shams. Before he announced them two months ago, most of them were already approved and under construction... Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has got to stop making nice-nice with Carney and the Liberals. Smith claims she is “still working” with the federal government on approval of a pipeline to the B.C. coast, plus a major carbon-capture project or two. She also thinks she might convince the Libs to repeal of what she calls the “nine bad laws,” including the emissions cap on oil and gas, a tanker ban off the West Coast and the net-zero electricity mandate. Those Trudeau-era laws scared away hundreds of billions of dollars in investment to our province"

KLEIN: Is this the beginning of Canada’s collapse? - "Across the federation, serious discussions about separation are gaining traction. These aren’t fringe activists shouting into the wind. They are business leaders, community figures and everyday residents who believe their province is no longer respected or represented by the federal government. What is most alarming is how many Canadians dismiss these conversations as background noise, as if unity is something that sustains itself without leadership or action. Take Quebec. The Parti Québécois has revived the sovereignty project with more detail than we have seen in years... the most pressing danger is coming from the West, and the warning signs are impossible to miss. Prime Minister Mark Carney recently announced another round of so-called nation-building projects. Once again, an Alberta pipeline was nowhere to be found. At this point, that omission is not an oversight. It is a message. And people in the West have heard it loud and clear. Grant Fagerheim, the CEO of Whitecap Resources, didn’t soften his words when asked about Ottawa’s refusal to prioritize pipeline development. He warned that if the federal government continues to stall, we should expect “fury from Alberta and Saskatchewan.” He’s right. Their patience is wearing thin. And why wouldn’t it? These are the only two landlocked provinces in Canada. They rely on cooperation from Ottawa to get their energy to international markets. Instead, they face regulatory walls and political lectures. Fagerheim wants something very simple: a federal government willing to help break down barriers so Canadian products can reach global buyers without being sold at a discount. That isn’t radical. That is common sense. But common sense has been missing in Ottawa for years. Meanwhile, Americans continue selling our oil and gas to other countries at a premium while also benefiting from cheaper domestic fuel. We have allowed ourselves to become a captive supplier to the United States. A pipeline to tidewater would give Canadians access to international markets instead of being forced into the role of junior partner in our own energy economy. Yet when Alberta proposes a bitumen pipeline or even a broader energy corridor that could move natural gas, oil, rail and electricity across multiple provinces, Ottawa hesitates. Fagerheim’s vision is practical and rooted in economic reality. He knows the industry inside and out. His company just completed a massive merger to create a leading Canadian light oil producer. He’s not making emotional arguments. He’s speaking from experience. He is also blunt about the political double standard. If these resources were in central or eastern Canada, he believes “this would be a different game.” That shouldn’t be controversial. It is supported by decades of decisions that favoured one region’s priorities over another’s. And he’s right that the energy sector has been demonized. Few Canadians seem aware that Western producers spend enormous resources on emissions reduction, carbon sequestration and responsible development. Saskatchewan is home to one of the largest carbon sequestration projects on the planet. It earns applause in Europe and Asia, but barely a mention in its own country. How long can a federation survive when the engine of its economy is treated like an inconvenience?... For provinces like Manitoba, this is a direct threat. If Alberta and Saskatchewan decide they have had enough, equalization payments collapse. Manitoba would face financial devastation. Services would be slashed. Our economy would take a hit that would take generations to recover from. These are not speculative warnings. They are mathematical realities. Yet Ottawa continues selecting projects in regions with the most votes, while the West is expected to wait patiently for recognition. That pattern erodes trust. And without trust, there is no federation. Corporations see this instability too. Every headline about sovereignty, every political fight over pipelines, every sign that Ottawa is unwilling to support resource development makes investors hesitate. Capital is mobile. If uncertainty grows, companies will place their money elsewhere. Canada cannot afford to bleed investment and expect the economy to somehow hold together. We are already losing ground. Printing money and hoping inflation will settle is not a plan. It is a gamble."
Time for more concessions to Quebec, funded with Albertan money, while mocking Albertans as traitors, condemning the US, and continuing to destroy the oil and gas industry

Guns versus butter: Canada's military-industrial complex - "According to the Mark Carney Liberal doorstopper piece of economic fiction, the 2025 Canada Strong budget, Ottawa plans $81.8 billion in new military spending that will help boost the economy and create thousands of high-paying jobs. “Our government is making a generational investment in defence that will create good, high-paying careers for Canadians, and strengthen our economy and collective resilience.” The new military spending “will create good, high-paying careers for Canadian workers and drive investments that strengthen our economic, infrastructure, and collective resilience.” Ottawa, it repeated, will “reform defence procurement to make it easier and faster to buy Canadian-made equipment — supporting our domestic defence industry and creating high-paying careers.“ Unfortunately, the idea that defence spending and investment automatically boost economic activity and growth is far from being a solid pillar of economic theory. As the pressure grew on Canada to increase defence spending to up to five per cent of GDP as part of an expansion of NATO commitments, various economists issued papers over the past year that cast doubt on the links between defence spending and economic benefits... The negative aspects of defence spending include possible “capital leakage, fiscal overspending, and the risk of diverting resources from more productive sectors of the economy.”... research suggests “that the economic impact of increased military spending in Canada will depend closely on the specific types of expenditures undertaken, its military characteristics (capital intensity), and its ability to generate spillover effects within a military-industrial complex.” Which means that the deeper Canada becomes involved in the international military expansion boom, perhaps the economic impact will be positive. A European Commission summary of the economic impact of higher defence spending failed to find positive evidence"

Carney forced pension funds to back Canada. What happened next is a warning for Reeves - "Melanie Joly, his industry minister, has told fund providers to invest more of their C$3tn (£1.6tn) of assets at home to help the turn to economic nationalism.  But now, this wave of “pension nationalism” risks spiralling out of control. Cash-strapped Canadian provinces – tempted by the prospect of a new source of much-needed capital – have rushed to copy the approach and invest pensions in local projects, pouring people’s savings into potentially unprofitable ventures.  The embrace of pension nationalism risks getting “very messy” for millions of Canadians’ savings, senators and former Bank of Canada officials told The Telegraph... Canada’s Maple Eight pension system has become the envy of the world since it was introduced in the 1990s.  The scheme unites the country’s public sector funds which pay out defined benefit pensions. It is famous for its independent fund managers and its diversified, global portfolios in private markets.  With that model, the Maple Eight have delivered a higher net value add to savers in the past 35 years than any of its competitors around the world, according to CEM Benchmarking, a pension data analytics firm.   But experts say that tradition risks being sacrificed as Carney looks to use all the economic tools available to him – including the Maple Eight – to fortify Canada against American threats.  Paul Beaudry, who previously served as deputy governor of the Bank of Canada, warned that the “arm-twisting” involved in forcing pension funds to support development goals risked descending into “crony capitalism”.  “You want to be very careful not to coerce the pension funds because then you open up a whole set of issues. The accountability of the pension funds is towards the pensioners, so that can get very messy”, he said.   Sebastien Betermier, associate professor of finance at McGill, said pension nationalist policies like mandated investments were “the equivalent of imposing a tax on pensioners”.  “It’s a dangerous path that risks lower returns for savers. Every fund at the end of the day will want to maintain a globally diversified portfolio”, he added.  Meanwhile, the threat of “pension nationalism” spreading to the Canadian provinces risks even further damage as savers’ money is used to fund projects that could yield lower returns.  François Legault, the Quebec premier, has announced a “Quebec Power” programme – pushing the French-speaking province’s Caisse de Depot pension fund to invest in the anaemic local economy.   Similar moves are being made in Alberta – the western province often referred to as “Canada’s Texas”. Danielle Smith, the populist premier, wants to withdraw the province from the federal pension fund in a bid, according to her critics, to pour people’s savings into the single large local industry: oil and gas.  Critics claim that when pension nationalism is put into practice, particularly on a more local level, it can lead to a large portion of people’s savings being concentrated in a small set of industries – with too many of their eggs in one basket.  Senator Clement Gignac, an economist and former Quebec cabinet minister, said: “At the end of the day, if you want to have a decent revenue at retirement, you know you have to diversify.  “The funds have to be managed by professionals. It’s not the business of politicians.”  Mr Beaudry claimed that politicians should be in charge of a “big enough unit” before they “even think about pension nationalism”... Quebec’s main pension fund, the Caisse de Depot, has historically worked differently than the rest of the Maple Eight because of its origins in the Quebecois nationalism of the 1960s and 1970s. Since it was founded, the fund has had a “dual mandate” which requires it to boost the provincial economy on top of the normal fiduciary responsibility to savers.  But in recent decades, as Quebec faced a rapidly ageing population, the Caisse fund shifted its strategy towards globalising its portfolio – an approach which yielded great success and avoided financial insolvency.  Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill, warned Mr Legault’s measures could turn the fund back to the past and threaten its financial future once again."
When returns fall, it will be proof that capitalism has failed and more regulation is needed

Jasmin Laine 🇨🇦 on X - "Can we drop the whole ‘Conservatives are terrible’ thing already? They’ve run Canada for 9 of the last 32 years… and the last 10 have been under this mess. So who’s really to blame? The Conservative government that—by every metric—had us on the right track… or the establishment that’s had a 32-year grip and has been manipulating you to keep them in power?"
Clearly, this shows how damaging Harper was, such that he's ruined Canada forever

Ryan Gerritsen🇨🇦🇳🇱 on X - "A great clip summarizing the long list of bad policies Carney’s Government still has in place. Canada will never prosper under a Liberal Government."

Roman Baber on X - "Carney sent @FP_Champagne and @AnitaAnandMP to Mexico in an act of desperation. Mexico wasn't interested. @MarkJCarney has terrible judgement."

“It is essential not to contribute to increased oil and coal production and to focus on renewable and transition energies." - Marc André Blanchard, Mark Carney’s new Chief of Staff : r/Ontario_Sub

What will you sacrifice for Carney and country? - The Globe and Mail - "The budget, to be voted on by MPs on Monday, had much-hyped cuts to the public service. But there were no major tax hikes or cuts to social programs. The budget had nearly $90-billion in net new spending. To pay for that, we borrow on the bond market. Canadians down the line pay that back.  Canada’s books are relatively good, and the government says we’ll borrow less next year. But we say that year after year, announce more borrowing and shift the goalposts. The trend is worrying. In Britain and France, debt devastates state capacity and breeds instability because those countries once thought their books were good, too.  Instead of asking what we can do for future generations, we asked what future generations can do for us. That is not sacrifice. A prebudget Globe editorial cartoon was surprisingly prescient: It showed kids handing Mr. Carney their Halloween candy.  If we want to, in Mr. Carney’s words, “invest more” and “reinvest in the Canadian Armed Forces,” we should pay for today’s spending today. The cuts to the public service are positive. Ideally, we should cut more, such as from Old Age Security, which benefits rich as well as poor retirees. But OAS seems a sacred cow no party dares touch. Indeed, a lot of federal spending covers various benefits, health care and social services – politically impossible to cut...  Many economists agree that taxing consumption does less to hurt productivity than taxing income... Ireland gives tax incentives for business investment, but that is balanced by consumption taxes as high as 23 per cent. From 1995 all the way up to the 2008 financial crisis, Ireland’s economy grew 6 to 10 per cent per year, on average...  in Canada consumption taxes are not charged on necessities such as groceries, and lower-income folks get some back via the GST credit payment. If we worry about the regressive impact of a higher GST, we can always up the credit... Michael Wernick, former clerk of the privy council, has suggested a 2-per-cent “defence and security” consumption tax. It’s really just a GST hike, but his proposal labels where the money goes and separates it... this tax should be clearly labelled such on receipts. And the cheque and letter sent should not only elaborate in detail what that additional GST buys but also include a personal thank you from a real person. If it’s a defence tax, the thank you could be from a soldier. We can go even further and have high-schoolers pitch in, thanking taxpayers for not saddling them with debt in the future."

Tasha Kheiriddin: Don't fall for Carney's 'Buy Canadian' fallacy - "Protectionists, start your engines. On Monday, Prime Minister Mark Carney unveiled a “Buy Canadian” procurement policy that prioritizes Canadian suppliers for all manner of federal spending, including a second set of national “major projects” he’s announcing on Thursday. “We will build Canadian, by becoming our own best customer,” Carney intoned. Ottawa will allocate nearly $186 million in new funding to the policy, including “streamlined support for Canadian small and medium-sized businesses trying to break into the federal market.” At first blush, this sounds incredibly patriotic: make things at home, spend our tax dollars on our own businesses, support Canadian jobs. But it also represents a retreat from the free trade policies that have served Canada so well, while doing nothing to counter the big bugbear of our economy: low productivity. It makes a virtue of corporate welfare, whereby the government picks economic winners and losers, in this case based solely on nationality. The “Buy Canadian” doctrine effectively gives Canadian companies a guaranteed market, regardless of how good their products are, or how efficient their business is. But guaranteed markets breed complacency. The drive to cut costs, innovate, and reach new markets vanishes — and consumer prices go up. Case in point: for decades, Canadian regulations have sheltered our Big Six banks and our telecom monopolies from competition. As a result, Canadians pay billions in “excess” bank fees and some of the highest telecom costs in the world. Supply management policies do the same thing for agricultural products, keeping foreign competition out and raising the cost of staples like eggs and milk for consumers. Worse yet, attempts to prefer “home-grown” businesses can lead to graft and waste. The $59-million ArriveCan procurement scandal resulted in part from guidelines requiring the awarding of contracts to Indigenous-owned firms, which saw companies pretending to be First-Nations based to get deals. In fact, Ottawa’s entire IT procurement policy was slammed for a lack of variety in suppliers. When you erect trade walls — even patriotic ones disguised as procurement policy — you also stunt productivity. According to the Bank of Canada , a more competitive business environment would drive greater innovation and efficiency, particularly for small and medium-sized businesses, the very ones Carney’s strategy now wants to prefer. Canada’s productivity problem will not be solved by stifling competition, but by opening it up. And contrary to the naysayers, free trade has benefitted both Canadians and Americans. The Bank of Canada found that real income rose by 15-40 per cent due to Canada-U.S. free trade. Canada is now the top export market for 36 U.S. states, supporting millions of American jobs. The U.S. trade deficit with Canada is due entirely to energy imports , which America has enjoyed at below-market rates for decades. This energy has in turn fuelled their domestic industries in everything from manufacturing to AI... If we insist our government spend only on Canadian goods or services, other nations will respond in kind, and our firms lose access to markets... Industrial policy and procurement nationalism produce winners by government decree rather than by merit; they protect sectors and shield them from competition; and they shrink markets and squelch innovation. Carney should not swap Canada’s trade advantage for the illusion of self-sufficiency."
The same people who support this bash Trump's tariffs and denounce "greedy" corporations for raising prices, of course

Links - 29th March 2026 (1 - Zohran Mamdani [including Oct 7-supporting Wife])

Meme - New York Times: "Mayor Zohran Mamdani sought to create a wall between his leadership of New York City and the private views of his wife, Rama Duwaji, after being asked about her social media activity surrounding the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Mamdami Says His Wife's Views on Gaza Are No One's Business"

Thread by @daniela__127 on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "If we want to talk about the social media history of people’s wives, especially how they reacted to Oct 7th, we’re going to have to talk about Zohran Mamdani’s wife 🧵
A few days ago, the NYT ran a smear article on Dan Goldman’s wife’s social media activity post-Oct 7th. Disgruntled Goldman constituents tried to pathologize the normal and common Jewish trauma reaction. The same constituents would likely shrug off Zohran Mamdani’s wife’s cheering of the actual genocidal actions of Hamas, a terrorist organization, and her support of the protests in NYC backed those actions. To his credit, Zohran Mamdani the politician has denounced the Oct 7th attacks. Similarly, Dan Goldman has also explained that his wife does not speak for him.  So I guess the two have that in common. The real question is, Will the NYT run the same breathless smear article about Zohran Mamdani and his wife’s social media activity? Or is this type of “journalism” reserved for only those the NYT “reporters” ideologically disagree with? Let’s wait and see!"

Thread by @InnaVernikov on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - ".@nytimes did an entire exposé on the posts and likes of @RepDanGoldman’s wife, forcing Goldman to answer questions about his wife’s social media activity.  Our First Lady, Rama Duwaji, who shares a home and a life with our esteemed mayor, literally SUPPORTED HAMAS the day after the October 7 massacre.  Will the “paper of record” ask @ZohranKMamdani a single question on this? THEY WON’T. I’ll bet my life’s savings on it.  Instead, @nytimes headlines on Duwaji, conveniently focus on her (btw horrendous) fashion style.  jewishinsider.com/2026/03/zohran… Here she is. Supporting the narrative that indiscriminate rape & slaughter of innocent women and children is “breaking the walls of apartheid and military occupation.”"

Joel M. Petlin on X - "What's infuriating about this story is not the fact that Mayor Mamdani's wife supports the Oct 7th massacre. We obviously knew they both do.  What's infuriating is that the NY Times revealed that Congressman Dan Goldman's wife supports Israel, and he was forced to publicly distance from her.  We've reached the moral low point where supporting terrorists doesn't disqualify Democrats, but supporting Israel does."

Mamdani Defends Wife Amid Criticism of Her Support for Palestinian Cause - The New York Times - "The mayor said his wife’s views should not be subject to broad public scrutiny... Public officials have faced questions over the political activities or other actions of a spouse or partner, most recently earlier this week. The Times reported that Corinne Levy Goldman, the wife of Representative Daniel Goldman of New York, liked or reposted social media posts from several right-wing accounts that some saw as hateful or insensitive toward Palestinians and Black people."
U.S. Supreme Court justice Alito blames wife for flying flag associated with Trump election deniers - "U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has rejected calls to step aside from cases involving former president Donald Trump and Jan. 6 defendants, saying his wife hoisted controversial flags that flew above two homes.  "My wife is fond of flying flags. I am not," Alito wrote Wednesday.  In letters to Congress, Alito said his wife, Martha-Ann, was responsible for flying both an upside-down flag over their home in 2021 as well as an "Appeal to Heaven" flag at their New Jersey beach house last year. Both flags were prominent at the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol... Alito explained to the New York Times, which first broke the story about the upside-down flag, that his wife put it up after a heated dispute with anti-Trump neighbours.   "As soon as I saw it, I asked my wife to take it down, but for several days, she refused"... Alito also noted that the beach property is in his wife's name."

Olivia Reingold on X - "Guys that post was just the tip of the iceberg, I found 70+ radical anti-Israel posts liked by Rama Duwaji, wife of Zohran Mamdani. One calls October 7 a "mass rape hoax.""
Stephen L. Miller on X - "One of the posts was from a go-pro attached live stream that showed Hamas attackers shooting dogs outside of houses after breaking down fences. The NY Times omits this."
Maria Danzilo on X - "Reminder: The NYT made this fair game.    The posts she liked are awful and dehumanizing, minimizing and dismissing the atrocities committed against everyone that day : women, children, entire families.   There is even one she liked which showed poor defenseless dogs being shot by Hamas terrorists.   It’s time to stop pretending."

daniela on X - "The NYT was forced to report on Mamdani’s wife’s social media history and it’s honestly so embarrassing for the NYT that it probably would have been better if they hadn’t reported at all"
Rachel Moiselle on X - "The level of brazen dishonesty here really irks me.   To frame liking posts that celebrated a massacre of Jews as ‘care for Palestinians’ is such a grotesque and purposeful misrepresentation of the situation at hand.   You can make the case that the spouses of politicians shouldn’t be under such scrutiny, and this case is one I would agree with. But to wilfully lie about the contents of the posts in question - framing them as virtuous as opposed to morally abhorrent - is so despicably dishonest."
Frankly, this is an honest admission of what "pro-Palestine" or "pro-Palestinian" speech really means

The Persian Jewess on X - "Zohran Mamdani’s wife created Goebbels-inspired graphics of Jews for books that accuse Jews of being cockroaches and parasites. But remember, she’s a private person, so you’re not allowed to criticize all the awful despicable things she does."

Zohran Mamdani’s Wife Provided Illustration for Essay by Author Who Called Oct 7 ‘Spectacular’ and Attacked ‘Jewish Supremacist Vampires' - "Rama Duwaji, the first lady of New York City, provided a featured illustration for an essay by an author who called Hamas's Oct. 7, 2023, attack "spectacular," has frequently decried what she describes as "Jewish supremacist vampires," and said Jewish Israelis are "rootless soulless ghouls."  Duwaji, wife of Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D., N.Y.), provided a drawing for "A Trail of Soap," an essay in the collection Every Moment is a Life compiled by Susan Abulhawa. The essay, published last month in Everything Is Political—an offshoot of self-described "environmental & social justice nonprofit organization" Slow Factory—details a Gazan woman's attempt to find a bathroom in the territory. Abulhawa, an author and anti-Israel activist, has a long history of supporting terror and demonizing Jews. Just days after Oct. 7, she wrote an op-ed in Electronic Intifada in which she called the massacres "a spectacular moment that shocked the world" and insinuated that Israel allowed the attack to happen...   Abulhawa has spent the years since Oct. 7 offering thinly veiled attacks against Israelis, "Zionists," and "Jewish supremacists" on social media.  She wrote in one December post on X that Israelis are "rootless, soulless ghouls" and in September called Israel a "cultureless, rootless human aberration in the form of a manufactured 'nation,'" adding that "we live in the time of jewish supremacist demons."... Abulhawa described a pro-Israel commentator as a "lying Jewish supremacist cockroach" and bemoaned "Dual loyalty zionists." Abulhawa described Israelis as "demonic parasite[s]" in a November post in which she said "Israel must be dismantled if humanity is going to have any chance at a moral future" and in another post said "we will have our revenge someday" against the "sons of satan." "Jewish supremacists establishing yet more mechanisms and tentacles to control the minds of your children," she warned in October 2025. When the Embassy of Israel condemned Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi for declaring "I am against Judaism," Abulhawa responded that "No one has the right to judge how Palestinians feel or what they say about their colonizers and tormentors." "The whole world is Zionist occupied," she said in February in another post in which she called believers in Jewish self-determination "parasites." There have also been posts about "Jewish supremacist vampires," "Jewish supremacist ghoul[s]," and "rabid demon[s]" in recent months... In other posts, Abulhawa made clear she was not just talking about Israel.  "Wherever they are, they will drag their respective countries into war and financial ruin for their own benefit," she wrote in January, just a month before the Duwaji collaboration. "They have a singular loyalty to Jewish supremacy. The ADL and various tentacles of Pax Judaica will swallow us all whole."...   Slow Factory has received mainstream acceptance even as it pushes support for terrorism. The nonprofit partnered with Columbia University on educational programming in the past, the Free Beacon reported, and has worked with companies like Adidas and Gucci.  Abulhawa has similarly found a warm reception within academia. She organizes the Palestine Writes Literature Festival, which in 2023 was held at the University of Pennsylvania. That event drew scrutiny for featuring openly anti-Semitic speakers like former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters—who claims Jews manipulate U.S. foreign policy and dressed up as a Nazi during a concert in Germany—and Marc Lamont Hill, who was fired from his job at CNN for advocating Israel's destruction."
Of course, everyone knows she really meant "Zionist supremacists", so she's definitely not anti-Semitic
Clearly, this means nothing. But if Jordan Peterson is seen in a photo with a random stranger with an "Islamophboic" t-shirt, he deserves to lose his job and he is "Islamophopbic" too

Eyal Yakoby on X - "BREAKING: It’s been revealed that Zohran Mamdani’s wife has a long history of openly glorying terrorism, including convicted plane hijackers. She also used the n-word frequently on her old account. We warned you consistently about who the Mamdanis actually are."

Mamdani in a bind as snowball-thrower arrested for assaulting police - "A 27-year-old man has been arrested in New York for allegedly assaulting a police officer with a snowball in an incident that has put Zohran Mamdani, the city’s mayor, at odds with his own police force.  After a record-breaking winter storm, which saw around 20 inches of snow blanket the city, a large group gathered in a park in downtown Manhattan for a snowball fight on Monday.  Videos soon circulated on social media showing police officers being hit with snowballs, which, according to the New York Police Department (NYPD), caused injuries to their heads, necks and faces."
Of course, to left wingers, injuring the police with snowballs is harmless, but Ilhan Omar being squirted with apple cider vinegar is a horrific hate crime

Meme - Tali Goldsheft @TaliGoldsheft: "So are "cruel" budget cuts to libraries suddenly no longer cruel when they come from you, @ZohranKMamdani?"
Zohran Kwame Mamdani: "In one breath, Mayor Adams tells NYers that such cruel budget cuts to libraries, sanitation, and parks are necessary fiscal measures. And in another, he offers to restore funding to some of those very cuts in exchange for shielding the NYPD from accountability. Ridiculous."
Brigid Bergin @brigidbergin: ""Mamdani’s preliminary budget proposal, which he introduced earlier this week, includes a $29 million cut to the city’s three major library systems." by @lizkimtweets    Taking page from Adams, Mayor Mamdani proposes NYC library cuts"

Mamdani Watch on X - "🟢 Some parts of Zohran Mamdani’s budget:
• $5.6M for Office of Racial equity
• $4.6M for Commission on Racial Equity
• $835K on the Commission of Gender Equity
• $260K on Dept. of Education Chief Diversity Officer
• $301K for 3 FDNY Civilian Chief Diversity Inclusion Cops"
Jason Curtis Anderson on X - "NYC employs 364,000 government employees, of which only 31% of are white. What is the point of the office of racial equity? To reduce that number to zero?"

Fox News on X - "BREAKING DOWN THE BUDGET: NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s new $127B proposal is officially here, and the trade-offs are staggering. While the administration pours millions into new "Racial Equity" commissions and six-figure diversity bureaucrats, they’ve pulled the plug on hiring 5,000 new NYPD officers."

Wall Street Apes on X - "This is why Zohran Mamdani needs to raise property taxes on New York City residents. Here’s what’s included in his new $127 billion dollar spending proposal
- $5.6 million for Office of Racial Equity
- $4.6 million for Commission on Racial Equity
- $835,000 for Commission on Gender Equity
- $260,000 for Department of Education Chief Diversity Officer
- $301,000 for 3 FDNY Civilian Chief Diversity Inclusion Officers
- $118,000 for FDNY Chief Diversity Inclusion Officer
This is “The Warmth of collectivism”"

Eyal Yakoby on X - "BREAKING: Zohran Mamdani just booted out a drone manufacturer in NYC due to its ties with Israel. Tons of jobs and money just vanished from NYC."

Hon. Renee Collymore,57thAD on X - "The majority of NYCHA tenants are black people & Mayor Mamdani is banning NYCHA tenants from speaking at his Rent Ripoff Hearing against bad landlords. This is racist attack on black voices."
Maud Maron on X - "lol. Month two and he is being called “racist.” The radical left reaps what it sows.   The truth is the Mayor is the landlord of NYCHA and does not want to hear from his own tenants. He wants to wag his socialist finger at “bad” landlords without having a real policy discussion about what his proposed tax hikes, and his “I hate white people” advisor Cea Weaver’s vacancy decontrol laws, do to many landlords that can’t charge enough to cover the rising expenses they incur to own, maintain, and improve their properties while paying increasing taxes.  The people who voted for him are in for a rough ride. The rest of us get to say “I told you so” but there’s no joy in it. Our city has the revenue and resources to flourish. What we are missing is a competent political class capable of managing the budget, and grappling with the genuine trade-offs of any policy decision.   We need a competitive two party system to offer a robust debate on the ideas and policies that shape our city. The slow, and now fast, drift to socialist fear mongering and shitty policies is going to continue to be very bad for our economy and our quality of life. No surprises here."

Powerful NYC teachers union endorses Zohran Mamdani despite radical take on mayoral control of schools
Mamdani Threatens to Raid NYC Employee Pension Reserves – Transit Supervisors Organization Local 106

Councilwoman Vickie Paladino on X - "An Indianapolis DSA city council member agreed that it’s the duty of US socialists to make sure the United States is ‘defeated’. His profile picture is himself with Zohran Mamdani. Where, exactly does our mayor stand here? Does he agree that the US should be defeated here?"

Eyal Yakoby on X - "BREAKING: Zohran Mamdani reverses on a campaign promise to expand housing vouchers, saying that it is too costly. As has always been obvious, all of Zohran’s promises were never going to happen. You were duped."

Mark D. Levine on X - "NYC has put out call for emergency snow shovelers. Will help remove snow/ice citywide from bus stops, crosswalks, fire hydrants etc. Pay starts at $19.14/hr. To sign up, go to any DSNY garage tomorrow 8am-1pm with ID & two small photos. Details and application form:"
Ryan Saavedra on X - "There is so much to hit here  Mamdani campaigned on raising NYC's minimum wage to $30 an hour (an economic disaster) but now is offering manual laborers only $19 an hour to dig NYC out of major snow storms as it's about to get pummeled again  Then there is the fact that they have to give 2 forms of photo ID and their social security card TO SHOVEL snow, but no ID needed to vote"

New York Post on X - "Mamdani admin. fails to attract any shovelers for hours at NYC site"
Jean on X - "The problem is two-fold:
1. No one really wants to work for a communist;
2. Communists really don’t want to work."

Thread by @LevineJonathan on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "NEW from me.  On Oct 9, 2023 — two days after Hamas' Oct 7 massacre in Israel — the Muslim Democratic Club of New York put out a statement blaming Israel for the attack, saying they stood "in solidarity with the besieged Palestinian people"  Today, the founders of this group occupy top posts in City Hall under NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani
The Muslim Democratic Club of New York was founded by Ali Najmi, Faiza Ali, Aliya Latif and Linda Sarsour.  As of today:
Faiza Ali — Commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs
Aliya Latif — Executive Director of the Mayor's Office of Faith-Based Partnerships
Ali Najmi — leading the mayor's Advisory Committee on the Judiciary
All of these individuals view Linda Sarsour as a mentor.  Aliya Latif has described Sarsour as her "right hand," "sister," and "seeker-mother" in posts on X. Faiza Ali spent years working at the Council on American Islamic Relations.  During Ali's time with CAIR, she was a vocal supporter of the proposed "Ground Zero Mosque" two blocks from the site of the former World Trade Center. Ali dismissed critics of the project as un-American and said opposition to building a mosque so close to the location of the Sept. 11 attacks "reveal[ed] a new wave of anti-Muslim sentiment." She also represented CAIR at a 2010 press conference promoting the project."
Mamdani Hires Three Founders of Muslim Group that Blamed Oct. 7 on 'Israeli Apartheid Regime'

(((Jeremy Posner))) on X - "I have been saying for a while that the DSA built their brand on telling everyone how much better they could do if they had to govern, and that being in a position of having to govern has the potential to destroy their brand for years to come."
How ignorant. Doesn't he know that Zohran has nothing to do with the DSA despite being a member and that being part of a group only tars you (or vice versa) if that pushes the left wing agenda?!

Pro-America | Politics & Markets on X - "Mamdani went from "tax the rich" to "let's raid the retirement funds of the normies" in about six weeks. Welcome to socialism New York City. Hope you enjoy the ride."

Geiger Capital on X - ">Runs entire campaign on freezing the rent
>Immediately raises NYC property taxes forcing landlords to raise the rent"
Time to blame the "rich"

Eyal Yakoby on X "Mahmoud Khalil last year: “We are fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization.” Tonight, is invited to the NYC Mayor’s mansion to eat with Zohran Mamdani. Wake up—do you not see what’s happening?"

Bernard Stanford ✡︎ on X - "There are two positions from which one can approach the Mahmoud Khalil situation. One is the civil liberties perspective, being concerned in a content-neutral way about free speech and due process. But Mamdani is the other—supportive of Khalil *because* of his particular views. And they are TERRIBLE views.  Khalil was a student leader of an organization, the Columbia University Apartheid Divest, that unabashedly cheerleads and embraces Hamas' most violent acts. They referred to October 7th as a "heroic struggle." They published "A Tribute to Yahya Shinwar." They support "liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance."  October 7th was when Hamas, led by Shinwar, entered Israel and murdered as many unarmed civilians as they could find, face-to-face, with small arms.  Khalil himself supports "armed resistance" and justifies or downplays Palestinian violence. He has forcefully defended calls to "Globalize the Intifada," and minimized that the Second Intifada was itself largely a campaign of suicide bombings against Israeli civilians. Offering the most milquetoast denunciation of killing civilians in an interview, he immediately pivoted to justifying 10/7. After all, Palestinians, in his words, need not be "perfect victims."  But we have many reasons to believe Mamdani shares all these views. As a longtime activist who has accused Israel of being responsible for NYPD police violence, as himself a defender of the "Globalize the Intifada" phrase. As the husband of a woman who liked posts celebrating 10/7 on social media as it was happening.   And now Mamdani hosts Khalil, not simply to defend his rights but to affirm, casually, the "genocide" slander again the Jewish State—it is simply deplorable, and unacceptable for the Mayor of New York."

Simone Rodan-Benzaquen on X - "The post is disgraceful and yet so entirely unsurprising.  Mamdani describes Khalil as a victim of “cruelty” who was punished merely for exercising his First Amendment rights while protesting what he calls the “ongoing genocide in Palestine.”  What Mamdani does not mention is who Mahmoud Khalil actually is — and what he has actually said.  Khalil has publicly defended “armed resistance,” saying: “We’ve tried armed resistance, which is legitimate under international law, but Israel calls it terrorism.”  He justified the October 7 attack as something that “had to happen” to “break the cycle,” even suggesting it was tied to the prospect of a Saudi-Israel normalization deal.  This is the man Mamdani chose to honor at Gracie Mansion.  And he did so while repeating the blood libel that Israel is committing an “ongoing genocide.”  Think about that for a moment.  The mayor of New York — home to the largest Jewish population outside Israel — is hosting a man who rationalizes the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, while accusing the Jewish state of genocide.  None of this should surprise anyone who has followed Mamdani’s political trajectory.  He emerged from the SJP ecosystem and the activist networks that helped normalize slogans like “globalize the intifada” on American campuses.  And the ideological environment around him has already shown sympathy for the atrocities of October 7 —  his own wife had liked social media posts celebrating the attacks and denying the sexual violence committed that day.  So no, this post is not shocking.  What is shocking is that someone who speaks this language now represents power in New York City."

New York Post on X - "Mamdani claims he was defending free speech by hosting divisive Mahmoud Khalil at Gracie Mansion"
Councilwoman Vickie Paladino on X - "Such an interesting thing to say.  So let’s recap. When hosting a Hamas-supporting foreigner on a revoked visa, it’s all about the first amendment.  When an elected city council member speaks out against radical Islam and its impact on our country, the first amendment doesn’t apply and it’s an ethics committee investigation and a charge of harassment for Islamophobia.  That’s how things go in New York under this administration."
Jim Walden on X - "Can someone tell me how the media isn’t covering the hypocrisy here?    For the first time, the City Council wants to censure or expel a duly elected Council Member for private speech, which was directed only to people who chose to follow her on her personal social media account?    But, Khalil’s hateful and violent speech, which made New York Jews feel unsafe—and clearly impacted hate crimes—well, that is A-Ok?    What happened to the press defending the First Amendment? Help me understand!  Mr. Mayor, @NYCMayor , urge City Council to drop this bogus charge against Council Member Paladino—based on the same principles you said you were advancing by dining with Khalil in the aftermath of the terrorist attack!"
Free speech is only for pushing the left wing agenda

Izengabe on X - "There was a HUGE spike in hate crimes committed against Jews during Zohran Mamdani's 1st month in office. So to hide the spike in antisemitic crime Mamdani had the NYPD change the way it counts hate crimes to lower the reported number & make comparisons to previous years harder."

Wall Street Mav on X - "🚨NYC Mayor socialist Zohran Mamdani has proposed lowering the exemption on the death tax (estate tax) from $7.1 million down to only $750,000.   He would also increase the death tax from 16% to 50%.  No other jurisdiction in the USA confiscates wealth at death from people with that small of an estate. Anyone with any equity in a home in NYC would likely exceed the $750,000 and have to pay the death tax.  There is a federal estate tax (death) for estate wealth that exceeds $15 million (individuals). However, you can deduct other state and city estate taxes before paying the federal estate tax. So effectively, Mamdani is preventing the federal govt from taxing estates, NYC and NY State are taking it all first.  Follow: @WallStreetMav"

Links - 26th March 2026 (1 - Jeffrey Epstein [including Trump])

World Economic Forum boss Borge Brende quits after review of Jeffrey Epstein links - "The president and CEO of the World Economic Forum (WEF), Borge Brende, has resigned after a review into his links to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein... Brende's home country of Norway has seen several public figures drawn into the controversy, including Crown Princess Mette-Marit and diplomats Mona Juul and Terje Rød-Larsen.  Former Norwegian Prime Minister Thorbjørn Jagland was charged with "gross corruption" earlier this month over his ties with Epstein, police said."

Animal House - "Democratic Representative Dan Goldman accused President Donald Trump of having been “credibly accused” of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old minor, and alleged that the Justice Department is withholding related records from the public. The “credible accusation” in question involves an unverified allegation dating back to the 1980s that was investigated by the Biden DOJ. Goldman and Representative Ted Lieu called for a special prosecutor to further investigate.  It is remarkable to watch the left run this same playbook again, especially after it has come back to bite them in the ass time and time again.  According to the FBI documents, this is an uncorroborated accusation that surfaced in 2018 and 2019 regarding something that allegedly occurred in the 1980s. The accusation follows the same pattern as the E. Jean Carroll case, pick something that happened 30 years ago that has never been identified, then publicize sketchy accusations made by credibility challenged individuals that Trump, his sons, Ivanka (who was born in 1981 and would have been between 0 and 8 years old when this allegedly happened) and approximately 30 to 40 other individuals, including Alan Dershowitz and Elon Musk, attended what was essentially a sex-slave market featuring underage girls. For those who haven’t seen it, one part of the accusation is that Trump “measured the children’s vulva and vaginas by entering a finger…”  That’s the level of salaciousness.  Yesterday’s breathless headlines from the left claimed that the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times “confirmed” accusations initially reported by PBS. What those outlets confirmed was not that the events occurred, but simply that the accusations appeared in the documents. That is all. The response from Democratic officials has been swift. This morning, I awoke to a video — sent to me by my personal AWFUL (the teacher I have written about with whom I have been attempting to reason — of Representative Yassimin Ansari grabbing a little TV time by making additional fact-free accusations. I responded with a clip from James King interviewing another young AWFUL, who said she had “deduced” Trump’s guilt. It was telling that my personal AWFUL used the exact same word. Neither of them deduced anything from an uncorroborated, evidence-free accusation. At best, they extrapolated a conclusion from their own emotional biases. There is nothing in evidence with sufficient weight to justify further investigation.  The broader reality is this: President Trump is the most investigated, most surveilled, and most accused president in American history. His life has been examined under a partisan microscope every day for the past decade. One might reasonably conclude that if Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Merrick Garland, Alvin Bragg, Reid Hoffman, or any other Democratic operative had proof to back any of these claims, it would have surfaced at some point over the past eight years when they would have been the most politically useful. The left has also mastered a particular rhetorical trap: dismissing specific, verifiable details in favor of “the bigger idea.” The political right, by contrast, remains ensnared in a world where every sentence is parsed and negative intent is assigned to every word. This is a form of offensive emotional reasoning known as “Kafkatrapping,” defined as: your refusal to acknowledge that you are guilty of [some charge] simply confirms that you are guilty of it.  The burden of proof is applied unequally. Conservatives and Republicans are not afforded the same evidentiary standard in the court of public opinion as they are in a court of law. This dynamic was crystallized during the Clarence Thomas hearings, when NPR’s Nina Totenberg, commenting on Anita Hill’s unproven accusations, stated that truth was secondary because: “It’s the seriousness of the charge” that matters. This became what might be called the Totenberg Rule, and it operates through four mechanisms: things said cannot be unsaid; things heard cannot be unheard; things seen cannot be unseen; and if something is repeated by enough people, it becomes acceptable to treat it as true. My personal AWFUL added a corollary of her own: that Trump was mentioned hundreds of times in the documents, and therefore it simply must be true.  That is precisely what Democrats are hoping to achieve — convincing the public that guilt or innocence should be judged not by evidence, but by the severity of the accusation. I’m sure that not having a message in the run-up to a midterm election totally has nothing to do with it."
To left wingers, accusations they like, no matter how improbable, are the same as proof. But accusations they don't like don't count (like illegal immigrants who have been accused but not convicted of violent crimes)

Meme - "THE VIEW. Whoopi Goldberg addressed her name appearing in Epstein-related documents, saying being listed does not equal guilt. "Anybody can be on this list," Joy Behar said. "Anybody... I wasn't his girlfriend. I wasn't his friend," Whoopi added. In making the case that being named isn't proof of guilt, she is ironically defending Trump as well!"

tostitos on X - "In 2015, Epstein actively prepared the world for pandemics together with the WHO and the Red Cross.  A new file from a recent DOJ drop (EFTA00654215) reveals the correspondence:  Epstein forwards an email to himself with the subject line "Preparing for pandemics."  It discusses a meeting in Geneva, with the agenda attached. The sender writes:  «Please find attached a draft agenda for the meeting on preparing for  pandemics... Let's discuss next steps, for example how to officially  involve the WHO and ICRC (i.e. co-branding).»  This was 2015 long before COVID. Epstein personally coordinated global pandemic preparedness.  https://polymarket.com/event/will-any one-be-charged-over-epstein-disclosures?via=tostitos   Yes now 28% and continues to grow after such documents  This isn't just "underage parties" anymore. This is impacting global health institutions.  Are you in Yes or do you still think it's a coincidence?"
Clearly, if you advocate employing security guards to defend soft targets from mass shootings, that means you are behind them

Meme - Conor D. Oil @RealConorOil: "Libsh*ts will be mad!"
"BIDEN *Donald Trump*
underage girls *Ivanka sitting on his lap*"
Left wingers hate their families and are miserable, so they cannot imagine kids sit on their fathers' laps.

Meme - Reddit Lies @reddit_lies: "Trump frequently showed up in the Epstein files because a vast majority of Epstein's emails were spam emails from news outlets talking about politics. Redditors cannot comprehend this."
"r/WhitePeopleTwitter
Trump is an embarrassment for America!
Anonymous: "Mentioned more than a million times, but he's innocent. The fucker was in on it and was Epstein's partner in crime. HOW THE FUCK IS HE STILL POTUS? The USA is broken.""

Taylor Sharp on X - "🚨 BREAKING: Under oath, Bill Clinton says Donald Trump “never said anything to me to make me think he was involved” in wrongdoing related to Jeffrey Epstein. TRUMP CLEARED? The Epstein case just keeps backfiring on the democrats."

Canadian Politics on Facebook | Facebook - "Trump released the files and look what's happening...Hopefully more to come!
Hope they get all of them! Former Obama White House Counsel Kathy Ruemmler is resigning as chief legal officer at Goldman Sachs in the wake of the Justice Department's release of emails and other material that revealed her extensive relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Dubai billionaire CEO Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem resigns after email reveals Jeffrey Epstein thanked him for "torture video." In the UK Peter Mandelson received THREE payments of $25,000 from Epstein. Emails show he forwarded classified government information to Epstein while serving as Business Secretary. He has resigned from the Labour Party and resigned from the House of Lords. Starmer's Chief of Staff — resigned. His Communications Director — resigned. Scottish Labour leader called for Starmer himself to resign. Today in Norway police raided former PM Thorbjorn Jagland's home. Charge: AGGRAVATED CORRUPTION. Epstein called him "the Nobel big shot." He chaired the Nobel Committee. Ran the Council of Europe. Used Epstein's apartments in Paris, New York, and Palm Beach from 2011-2018. Epstein paid for everything. Norway Ambassador Mona Juul — resigned. Diplomat Terje Rod-Larsen — architect of the Oslo Peace Accords — linked to visa fraud for trafficking victims. Named in Epstein's will for $10 MILLION. The man who brokered Middle East peace was helping traffic children. Norway Crown Princess Mette-Marit — apologized. WEF President Borge Brende — under investigation. National security adviser of Slovakia resigned after Epstein communications surfaced. Former Culture Minister in France Jack Lang resigned. Corruption probe opened. UNHCR chair In Sweden resigned after visiting Epstein's island — AFTER his conviction. Nobel Committee chairs. Peace deal architects. Prime Ministers. Ambassadors. Crown Princesses. This reaches into Academia. Hollywood. Tech. Science. Politics. These aren't random connections. This is a network."

Gator Gar on X - "If Trump was eating babies and molesting minors with Epstein, and that is somehow proven by the files, why didn’t Biden’s FBI just release them, arrest Trump, and win the election in a landslide?  It’s not like they didn’t try to put Trump in prison either. They raided his house, dragged him through court, took him in for a mugshot. If there were any proof in the files that Trump was guilty of such serious crimes, the Democrats wouldn’t have hesitated to weaponize the justice system against him.  Period. End of story."

Epstein files: Biden body double claim amplified by Trump resurfaces - "The latest tranche of Epstein Files released by the DOJ had references to allegations of US President Joe Biden being shot in 2019 by a “firing squad”. The sender claims that Biden was subsequently replaced by a “body double or clone”, a claim which had been circulated by Right wing online spaces and later shared by the US President Donald Trump in his Truth Social platform. The sender and receiver of the email had been redacted by the FBI, but the content appears to have been originated from a former Estimote associate, who is accusing the recipient of being part of an Epstein-like cabal involved in child abuse and trafficking."
Clearly, everything in the Epstein files is true if it makes Trump and the right look bad, but it's false if it makes the left look bad

Bad Hombre on X - "Five things Democrats don’t want to talk about for some reason:
1. Chuck Schumer took money from Jeffrey Epstein, and Democrats running for Congress who wanted to meet Schumer went through Epstein.
2. Stacey Plaskett took money from, met with, and coordinated with Jeffrey Epstein after he was convicted.
3. Hakeem Jeffries’ campaign solicited donations from Jeffrey Epstein after he was convicted.
4. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) accepted donations from Jeffrey Epstein in 2018.
5. Donald Trump cut off all ties with Jeffrey Epstein in 2004. In 2006, Trump called the Palm Beach police chief to praise the FBI’s investigation into Epstein and provide information about Epstein and Maxwell."

Meme - *BBC News*
"BLACKS OUT "UNDERAGED" GIRLS THAT WEREN'T UNDERAGED
New photos from Epstein estate show Trump, Andrew and Bill Clinton
DOESN'T BLACK OUT UNDERAGED KID WHO IS DEFINITELY A CHILD
ICE detains 5-year-old during Minnesota operation"

Ex-police chief says Trump told him 'thank goodness you're stopping' Epstein in 2000s - "A former Palm Beach, Florida, police chief who investigated Jeffrey Epstein in the mid-2000s told the FBI he had received a call from Donald Trump at the time to say "thank goodness you’re stopping him, everyone has known he’s been doing this," according to an FBI account of an interview with the ex-police chief in 2019... The police chief’s name -- Michael Reiter -- is redacted from the document on the Department of Justice's website, but the information in the FBI statement tracks with previously public information about Reiter’s role in the investigation that began in 2005."
More clear proof that Trump is a pedo!

Meme - "The left's protection of children
Hunter Biden (?) with pre-pubescent girls outting their legs and other body parts on him
William Wallace: "Hold.."
*Child lying on drag queen's chest*
William Wallace: "Hold.."
*Drag Queen Alyssa Edwards (Justin Johnson) with scantily-clad prepubescent girls*
William Wallace: "Hold.."
*Joe Biden sniffing uncomfortable Maggie Coons*
William Wallace: "Hold.."
*Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein*
William Wallace: "NOW!""

Liz Wheeler | Facebook - "Oh what do I think of the Epstein docs?
- Bondi is an idiot for not releasing these a year ago.
- Trump totally exonerated, again. Not a whiff of wrongdoing in 3M documents. In fact, Trump “never got a massage” per Epstein himself who hated Trump. Totally exonerated. Democrats are liars. Duh.
- MSM are worse than you think. The “tip line” allegation that “Trump raped a 13yo” were deemed by the FBI to be non-credible, that tip line was open to any nutcase who called in, most accusations were 2nd hand gossip and easily disproved. Case in point, part of the allegations involved Trump’s LA golf course, and the allegation was supposedly from 1995-1996 but Trump’s LA golf course didn’t open til 2006. The media knows this. They just hate you.
- Bill Gates is an absolute creep. Also duh. I said this years ago. A creep who allegedly got STDs from Russian hookers and fed his wife antibiotics on the sly… What is he willing to do to us on the sly?! But trust his vaccines, sheep!
- Democrats loved Epstein. Sitting Congresswoman Stacy Plaskett not only texted Epstein for advice during a live congressional hearing, she visited Epstein Island many times. Sick. Where are Democrats censuring her? Crickets.
- Obama’s White House Counsel advised Epstein on how to smear Trump. Ew.
- And perhaps most interestingly of all, Epstein emailed former Israeli PM Ehud Barack about denying association with the Mossad. Hmmm. I think we know at this point that Epstein certainly brokered deals for Israeli intel (among other intel agencies) off the books.
- Plus, a photo of Epstein in a room filled with stacks of bankers boxes labeled “CIA”? A FOIA request from Epstein to disclose what info the CIA had on him?
Interestingly, in the past year, no thanks to the DOJ, it’s gone from a question to established with ample evidence that Epstein was associated with intel agencies. Doing what? Brokering off the books deals that govts didn’t want to appear directly involved in—though they were. So, Epstein served as liaison. And profited hugely. A year ago, we were branded as conspiracy theorists (at best) for suggesting that. Now, even Israeli PM Netanyahu seemed to acknowledge it when he posted an article about it. Which again, brings us full circle, to the reason we’ve all been demanding justice on Epstein for so long. He committed heinous sex crimes. He was let off easy for those crimes. We know why, now, due to his obvious associations with global intel agencies. But WHO let him off? THAT question is unanswered. Democrats’ lies about Trump have been exposed though. And Trump was exonerated, again."

Meme - "Donald Trump owned the Miss Universe Organization for 20 years. Here he is posing in a photo with Contestants (Adults)
Democrats released the same photo in 2025, blacked out their faces to insinuate these were MINOR Females"

Meme - Right Winged Angel: "Democrats released an image of Donald Trump with adult Hawaiian Tropic models and blacked out their faces to make it seem like he was with underage Epstein victims."

Donald Trumps name appears more often in the Epstein Files than Harry Potters name appears in all 7 Harry Potter books : r/UnpopularFacts - "To be fair, there are roughly 4100 pages in all the Harry Potter books combined, and 3 million Epstein files released. "Harry Potter" is written more in the Epstein files than in the Harry Potter books (134 times in books, 141 times in the Epstein files)."
"Harry Potter is in the Epstein files? Does Ginny know?"
"That's why they got divorced. Harry was trying to secretly cast a curing spell on her after he gave her an STD he got on the island.  No wait that's Bill Gates giving secretly giving his wife antibiotics that I'm thinking of."

Donald Trumps name appears more often in the Epstein Files than Harry Potters name appears in all 7 Harry Potter books : r/UnpopularFacts - "Bill Gates is mentioned 6127 times
Obama is mentioned 2495 times
Clinton 3326 times
Elon Musk 1092 times
Being in the files at all is a horrific stain on ones moral character, but let's be real about the absolutely massive scale of 3 million documents. There's gonna be a lot of mentions of a lot of people. FDR was mentioned 444 [edit: 414] times and he died before Epstein was born.
What I'm interested in is finding out exactly which elites participated in the sex crimes and other evil shit and punishing them for it."

Donald Trumps name appears more often in the Epstein Files than Harry Potters name appears in all 7 Harry Potter books : r/UnpopularFacts - "I mean they went through Epstein’s entire email. Russell Wilson was just looking at buying a jet so he shows up in the files"
"Winnie the Pooh is in the files 31 times. Someone raid the 100 Acre Wood."

Meme - "TRUMP IS IN THE EPSTEIN FILES!"
"IT SAYS EPSTEIN HATES TRUMP"
"BUT TRUMP IS MENTIONED!!!"

Greg Price on X - "Now liberals are once again spreading around the affidavit from the Katie Johnson lawsuit-- which has been publicly available since 2016 and was later dropped because she was a mentally ill drug addict who made the entire thing up.  There is quite literally nothing that these people are saying about Trump and Epstein that is true."

❤🎹 Ames 🎹❤ on X - "Trump Golf Course didn’t even exist in 1995. He didn’t buy it and rename it until 2002, and he didn't buy the Westchester property until 1996. These aren't suppressed facts.’ They are literally impossible stories that the DOJ correctly identified as unverified and sensationalist.  While transparency is important, it’s critical to look at the context of these specific screenshots. The Department of Justice explicitly stated in their press release that this dump includes millions of pages of uncorroborated citizen tips, many of which they have flagged as 'untrue and sensationalist claims' submitted right before the 2020 election.  Even the Deputy Attorney General noted that if these tips had 'a shred of credibility,' they would have been used in court years ago. Posting these as confirmed facts without mentioning that the DOJ itself calls them 'unfounded' is misleading. We should focus on the verified evidence in these files, not the noise from a public tip line that anyone can call into.  Posting anonymous tips that are chronologically impossible as if they are 'proof' is exactly why the DOJ temporarily pulled the files to add context. It’s misinformation, plain and simple.  But the left claim Trump r* ped a 13 year old girl even though that was debunked.    They need to move on.   This isn’t  what they hoped it would be.  🤣"

Meme - "WHEN THE PARTY THAT CAME UP WITH "MINOR ATTRACTED PERSONS" AND TRIED TO NORMALIZE IT, START THROWING AROUND THE TERM "PEDO""

Meme - "Some Epstein documents were already redacted when received by the DOJ. Some depict or describe sexual acts with children or have victim's names. Some because they are part of a case that has been sealed by a court. Neither Congress nor The President has the authority to unseal a court case."

Polaroids of Trump and Epstein with young women are fake. Here's the proof | Snopes.com

Was this photo of Trump and a young girl removed from Epstein files? | Snopes.com - "the photo was partially fake; it was manipulated from an authentic picture of Trump with his elder daughter, Ivanka Trump. Whoever created the misleading image either prompted an artificial-intelligence tool to generate the Black girl in place of Ivanka Trump or used other image-editing tools to achieve this result."

Remarks on X - "JUST IN: 🇺🇸 Newly released documents show former Democratic President Bill Clinton swimming alongside Ghislaine Maxwell and a redacted woman."
Svetlana Lokhova on X - "The Steele Dossier, which was actually written originally by the Clintons’ buddies Cody Shearer and Sidney Blumenthal, claimed falsely that President Trump was “compromised” because of “perverted acts” with prostitutes.  In truth it was Bill who was compromised by sex scandals  and a national security risk. They just swapped the names. It’s the usual Clinton tactic: falsely accuse President Trump of what you are guilty of yourself.  That’s why President Trump said that the Clintons’ and their associates’ attempts to put him in the “Epstein Files” are the Steele Dossier 2."
Of course, even before the release left wingers were claiming that the documents would be redacted. Yet at the same time they were claiming Trump was blocking their release and blaming him. Maybe the new cope will be that they're doctored so we can't trust anything in them that makes the left look bad. So they get the best of both worlds - lack of evidence shows right wing figures are evil, while actual evidence doesn't prove anything about the left wing figures

Rep. Burchett claims Democrats blocked motion to get Epstein files ‘straight to the floor’ - "Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) claimed on Wednesday that Democrats blocked his motion to bring the Jeffrey Epstein files to the floor...  “Just left the House floor and I tried to do a UC, unanimous consent, tried to get the Epstein files, get it straight to the floor, cut out all this nonsense,” said Burchett. “And, you know, and the Democrats blocked it oddly enough. Now, here they’ve had it for four years, and obviously, if there’s something there about Trump, they would have released it. And now they’re all ‘let’s get it out, let’s get it out.’” “Well, I just made a motion to bring it straight to the daggum floor, and they blocked it,” he said. “They blocked it. So, this is politics. It has nothing to do with doing what’s right. It’s Washington, D.C. to a T.” “They ought to be ashamed of themselves,” Burchett added. “But they’re probably not.”  Burchett’s comments about the Democrats blocking his motion came just hours after House Oversight Committee Democrats published emails between Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and author Michael Wolff. In the exchange, Epstein said that Trump “spent hours at my house” and “of course he knew about the girls.” Burchett also spoke to Bloomberg TV about the Epstein files and whether Trump is mentioned in them. He dismissed such concerns and said the things that are being released are “little pieces” that fit narratives and are “out of context.” Burchett did not speak on the emails released earlier in the day but expressed overall skepticism about anything that would be released.  “The Democrats have had this thing for four years, and let’s be honest, if there was something in there detrimental to President Trump, Joe Biden would have released it,” Burchett said in an interview with Bloomberg’s Joe Mathieu. “He’s the anti-Christ to the Democrats. They want to bury him as soon as they could.”...  “I’m just tired of it. I’m tired of all the pontificating back and forth, what’s in there, what isn’t in there,” Burchett said. “I think what you’re seeing right now is both sides are taking out little pieces that fit their narrative, out of context, maybe, or something that’s been discharged, is not legitimate, maybe.” He also blasted the Democrats for trying to manipulate public opinion about the Epstein files. He claimed they were weaponizing the emails to humiliate Trump and influence public opinion, and doing all of this while being dishonest about their genuine concerns over Epstein’s victims.   “I think that shows what’s really going on in the Democratic Party. They’re not concerned about the people that are involved,” Burchett said. “Some of them, clearly, they just hate Trump, and they think they’re going to embarrass him. They’ll release a few emails that are taken out of context or something that’s not been verified, or worse, something that’s been thrown out as negligible or that’s inaccurate. And they’ll take it as fact, and then you’ll have to rehear all of that. And that’s what it’ll be. It’ll be we’ll hear that for the next however many years.”  When asked if the president should be worried, Burchett said no.  “I don’t think so. Like I said, if there was something in there on Trump, I’m sure Biden would’ve released it. He had those files for four daggum years,” Burchett said. “I’ve talked to legal experts, a guy back home, Teddy Davis, we’ve gone over this thing a thousand times, over the backwards and forwards, and things that could be in there and might not be in there.”  “I don’t have a lot of faith in what’s in there and what isn’t in there right now,” the congressman added. “I think they should have released the files a long time ago because right now it’s just all politics.”"

𝐃𝐔𝐓𝐂𝐇 on X - "Three Democrat-appointed judges spent all year blocking the DOJ from unsealing Epstein’s 2005-2007 Florida grand jury transcripts:
Judge Robin Rosenberg (Obama) → denied
Judge Paul Engelmayer (Obama) → denied
Judge Richard Berman (Clinton) → denied
One Trump-appointed judge, Rodney Smith, just overruled them all and ordered the files released under the new Epstein Files Transparency Act. Drop date: December 19. The names are finally coming."
Proof that Trump is trying to hide the files!