Trump admin seized by Epstein files, Carney by his love of oil stocks...

Can Trump hold his coalition amid Epsteinmania? What about Carney and his oil stocks?

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As Donald Trump tries to secure trade deals while threatening more tariffs and attempts to end the Russian war on Ukraine, one issue appears to be taking up all the oxygen in Washington.

The Epstein Files!

Where are they? Why won’t they be fully released? Where is the client list?

It’s not the most important issue on the planet, but it certainly gets people’s attention and keeps tongues wagging. Epstein of course is the late pervert, sex trafficker, businessman and friend to celebrities and people of high net worth American society.

He died in August 2019 while in custody at New York’s Metropolitain Correctional Center.

Let’s not even get into whether he killed himself or was killed – Pam Bondi didn’t release the right video tape we are now told.

The Epstein files bring together real concerns over government’s trying to cover things up, the rich and the powerful, founded allegations of sexual trafficking and conspiracy theories about what really happened.

The reality of what happened in Palm Beach, on Epstein Island, at his New York townhouse is horrifying enough. By not being more transparent, the government feeds conspiracy theories.

The Trump administration had promised to release Epstein’s client list and all the documents. It was a campaign promise and several people now in the administration such as FBI Director Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, the deputy director of the FBI, had demanded the release.

So did many of the major media voices that supported Trump and helped him get elected.

Then suddenly, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced there was nothing left to release, there was no client list – despite her saying in an interview that it was on her desk waiting to be reviewed a few months ago.

All of this is causing a real rupture in the MAGA movement. Trump has been trying to hold it together, but without releasing more, that feat may be impossible.

Alan Dershowitz was one of Epstein’s lawyers in his 2006 legal case in Florida and saw many of the documents and names people want released. Appearing on News Nation with Chris Cuomo, Dershowitz explained that there is no list, but there are names and said it is judges, not the Trump administration keeping those names secret.

Interesting context from Dershowitz, don’t expect this story to fade away anytime soon.

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Carney’s love of oil...

For a man who campaigned for years against further expansion of the oil and gas industry, Mark Carney sure loves a good oil company stock.

It’s hard to square the man who said this:

“Maybe as much as half of oil reserves, proven oil reserves, need to stay in the ground,” Carney said at COP 26 in Glasgow.

With a stock portfolio that includes Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Marathon, Occidental and several other oil and gas companies. One company, Coterra, caught my eye because of their involvement in fracking for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale Basin.

I have no issue with fracking, but it’s not something a good environmentalist like Mark Carney, or those who voted for him would support. It’s the kind of thing that left-wing grannies go out and protest against in their Birkenstocks.

But to put a finer point on this, Carney founded GFANZ or the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero. This was a collection of companies that tried to push policies such as not financing any oil and gas projects, the theory being if they couldn’t get financing, the projects wouldn’t go forward.

While pushing that policy, Carney was heavily invested in oil and gas.

Carney’s portfolio shows us that his publicly stated values don’t drive him or his actions the way he has claimed. That’s sitting just fine with the Brantford Boomers who voted for him. Based on the emails and comments I’m getting from them, they are “values” shape shifters as well.

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Poilievre calls for hard caps on immigration...

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre held a news conference on Monday to criticize Carney’s portfolio, his hypocrisy and his many conflicts of interest. During the question and answer session, a reporter asked him to clarify what he meant by past statements calling for strict limits on population growth.

So first of all, I'll tell you what I don't mean, which is natural population growth. That is almost nonexistent. In Canada. We have roughly the same number of people who die as who are born. So, all of our population growth, in fact, in the last quarter, I think there were more deaths than births. So, what I am referring to is migration, net migration.

We have millions of people whose permits will expire over the next couple of years, and they will many of them will leave. We need to ensure that more leave than come in over the next couple of years, while we catch up. While housing, health care and jobs can catch up.

You can watch his full answer below.

Trump threatens tariffs on Putin...

He’s using tariffs to get his way on everything else, so why not try and use it to end Russia’s war on Ukraine. On Monday, Trump told reporters that he wants a deal to end the war by September and if not there will be consequences.

“We’re very, very unhappy with them, and we’re going to be doing very severe tariffs, if you don’t have a deal in 50 days, tariffs at about 100%, they call them secondary tariffs,” Trump said.

As CNBC explains, this comes as Trump authorized billions in new American military equipment for export to Ukraine. It’s all gear made in the USA, but these shipments will be paid for by the Europeans.

Still, it’s a shift just like the tariff threat.

Trump’s announcement — coupled with the secondary tariff threat against Russia — marks a shift in the president’s support for Ukraine, and underscores his growing frustration with the Russian leader.

Trump’s secondary tariffs would impose levies on the countries and entities that buy Russia’s exports.

They could take an especially heavy toll on countries that rely on Russian fossil fuels as part of their energy plan, like China, India, Brazil and Turkiye.

Let’s hope Putin gets the message.