A former staffer for Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., is launching his own congressional bid on Thursday, Fox News Digital has learned.
Republican Austin Rogers is formally jumping into the race for Florida’s 2nd Congressional District, a solidly Republican seat encompassing part of the Sunshine State’s panhandle. It’s currently being represented by Rep. Neal Dunn, R-Fla., who is retiring at the end of this year.
Rogers invoked both President Donald Trump and Scott in a statement announcing his candidacy in a testament to the district’s conservative lean.
‘As President Trump and Senator Scott have shown, strong leadership matters,’ Rogers said. ‘I was raised right here in the 2nd District, fishing these bays, hunting these woods, and competing on these fields. I was taught to love this country, respect hard work, and stand up for what’s right. I’ve seen firsthand how broken Washington is. Our nation needs more fighters who will fearlessly root out waste, fraud, and abuse in government.’
Rogers previously worked as general counsel for Scott’s Senate office, which he argued helped him learn ‘how Congress actually works.’
‘I have drafted legislation, conducted congressional hearings, and led investigations holding the left accountable,’ Rogers said.
Scott’s campaign team told Fox News Digital that he has no current plans to make an endorsement in the race, however.
Rogers’ statement notably did not mention Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, another central Republican figure in the Sunshine State, despite the district including the capital city of Tallahassee.
Rogers, a father of two with a third child on the way, was born and raised in his district and moved back there with his wife after a brief stint in Washington, D.C.
Meanwhile, a crowded field is forming to replace Dunn, a surgeon and retired Army major who first won his seat in 2016.
Three Republicans and three Democrats have already filed to run for the district, with Rogers becoming the fourth GOP hopeful in the race.
Among the GOP candidates in the race is Evan Power, Florida’s Republican Party state chairman, and Keith Gross, a businessman who previously mounted a long-shot bid against Scott in 2024.
Dunn is part of a record number of House lawmakers announcing their departures from the lower chamber in the 119th Congress. Twenty-eight Republicans and 21 Democrats have announced retirements between this year and last year, more than during any other congressional term.
Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois fired back at Vice President JD Vance after he likened her sparring session with Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing about America’s Venezuela policy to an argument between the fictional character Forrest Gump and Isaac Newton.
‘Watching Tammy Duckworth obsessively interrupt Marco Rubio during this hearing is like watching Forest Gump argue with Isaac Newton,’ Vance quipped in a Wednesday post on X.
Duckworth responded, ‘Forrest Gump ran toward danger in Vietnam. Your boss ran to his podiatrist crying bone spurs. Petty insults at the expense of people with disabilities won’t change the fact that you’re risking troops’ lives to boost Chevron’s stock price. It’s my job to hold you accountable.’
Other Democrats also responded to Vance.
Democratic Rep. Shri Thanedar of Michigan shared Vance’s post and wrote, ‘Imagine watching Forrest Gump and your takeaway is to mock people with disabilities.’
‘That’s a U.S. Senator doing her job. This is a random troll tweeting at her,’ Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker wrote in a post on X.
‘Comparing @SenDuckworth to Forrest Gump is classless and disgraceful. She’s a veteran who lost her legs fighting for this country. If you had any honor, you’d take this post down. But you work for Trump, so clearly you have none,’ Democratic Rep. John Garamendi of California declared in a post.
Duckworth served in the Illinois Army National Guard and was deployed to Iraq in 2004, according to a biography on her Senate website, which notes that ‘On November 12, 2004, her helicopter was hit by an RPG and she lost her legs and partial use of her right arm.’
She noted in 2022 social media posts that an RPG ‘tore through the cockpit of the helicopter I was co-piloting. The blast cost me my legs, partial use of my right arm and nearly my life,’ she noted.
Vance added in another post, ‘Thank God we have a Secretary of State who knows his facts AND has the patience of Job. Great job, @SecRubio.’
In Bill Cotter’s beloved children’s book series, Don’t Push the Button! a mischievous monster named Larry presents young readers with a tantalizing big red button, sternly warning them not to press it. Of course, the allure proves too strong for toddlers, who gleefully ignore the advice, unleashing a cascade of silly chaos – turning Larry into a polka-dotted elephant or summoning a horde of dancing bananas. The books’ humor lies in the predictable disobedience, but the underlying lesson is clear: some temptations are simply too powerful to resist.
This whimsical analogy holds a sobering truth for the world of economics. Far too many economists, in their policy recommendations, unwittingly craft similar “big red buttons” for policymakers. They design sophisticated interventions intended to fix specific market imperfections with the caveat that these tools should be used judiciously – only when necessary, and with precision. Yet, politicians, driven by electoral pressures, find these buttons irresistible in off-label uses and abuses. The result? Not playful pandemonium, but real-world economic distortions such as deficits, inflation, and moral hazard that often exacerbate the very problems the policy was prescribed to solve.
Economists often position themselves as impartial social scientists, perched in ivory towers far removed from the messy arena of politics. They deploy intricate models to pinpoint “optimal” policy response. For instance, during a recession, they might calculate the exact multiplier effect of a fiscal stimulus package, advocating for targeted government spending to boost aggregate demand. Or they may recommend an “optimal” tax rate or an exactly tailored tariff that can generate slight efficiency gains under rare conditions. In monetary policy, they endorse tools like quantitative easing or financial bailouts to stabilize banking systems. These recommendations stem from a genuine desire to mitigate harm and promote efficiency, rooted in the observation that markets aren’t perfect: externalities, information asymmetries, and behavioral biases can lead to suboptimal outcomes.
However, by blessing these expansive toolkits, economists inadvertently empower policymakers with levers that beg to be pulled in ways and contexts well beyond what the economists intended. Even if the advice comes with implicit disclaimers, such as “use sparingly,” “monitor side effects,” or “phase out promptly,” these are as effective as Larry’s warnings to a curious child. Policymakers operate in a high-stakes environment where incentives skew toward action over restraint. Re-election hinges on visible results: cutting ribbons on pork-barrel infrastructure projects funded by stimulus or touting low unemployment figures propped up by easy money. Long-term consequences, like mounting public debt, systemic financial risk, or bubbles, are conveniently deferred to future administrations.
This oversight isn’t just a minor flaw; it’s a fundamental methodological error. As Nobel laureate James Buchanan, a pioneer of public choice theory, demonstrated, economists cannot claim scientific neutrality while ignoring the incentives of those who wield power. Public choice theory applies economic reasoning to politics, revealing that policymakers are not benevolent philosopher-kings but rational actors pursuing their own interests – votes, campaign contributions, and bureaucratic expansion. Buchanan critiqued the “romantic” view of government prevalent in much of mainstream economics, where market participants are assumed to be self-serving and prone to failure, while public officials, and the voters who elect them, are idealized as altruistic guardians of the public good.
Consider two historical examples. In Lombard Street, Walter Bagehot famously laid out the rules for central bankers to follow during a financial panic, necessary to prevent policymakers from pressing the monetary button inappropriate and generating moral hazard or disequilibrium. But, even after a century of model calibration and data refinement, even academic economists when serving as monetary authorities could not resist pushing the button. Politic incentives made actions that economists held to be inadvisable prior to their policy roles irresistible after they assumed their roles. With bailouts of the commercial paper, bond, main street lending markets, not to mention state and municipal governments, the Fed’s response to Financial Crisis and COVID-19 have demonstrated how incentive-incompatible these policy recommendations are in practice.
Countercyclical stimulus recommended by John Maynard Keynes to combat a recession has suffered a similar fate. While Keynes questioned the legitimacy of government spending more than 25% of national income, he nevertheless gave policymakers an excuse to disregard what James Buchanan and Richard Wagner called the “old-time fiscal religion” of balanced budgets. Politicians hit the button and now budget deficits are the norm.
To break this cycle, economists must integrate an analysis of incentives into their core framework. This means adopting a “constitutional economics” approach, as Buchanan advocated – one that designs institutions and policies with built-in safeguards against abuse. For instance, instead of open-ended stimulus authority, recommend automatic stabilizers like unemployment insurance tied to verifiable economic triggers, with sunset clauses to prevent mission creep. In monetary policy, advocate for rules-based frameworks, such as NGDP targeting with strict accountability, over discretionary interventions that invite political meddling. The tradeoff is less discretion and precision, but it is necessary to create institutions robust to real-world deviations away from idealized policymakers.
Moreover, economists should explicitly acknowledge the principal-agent problem in government: oftentimes uniformed and biased voters (principals) struggle to monitor policymakers (agents), leading to agency capture by special interests. By assuming away these dynamics, traditional policy advice becomes not just naive but unscientific, as Buchanan noted. True rigor demands modeling both market and government failures symmetrically. This means questioning not only why markets falter but why government interventions might amplify those failures through perverse incentives.In the end, the lesson from Don’t Push the Button! is timeless: if you don’t want chaos, don’t create the button in the first place. Economists would do well to heed it, crafting advice that anticipates real-world incentives rather than ideal scenarios. By doing so, they can foster more resilient economies, where markets handle what they do best, and government intervenes only when truly essential – and with safeguards on the buttons to keep them from being mashed indiscriminately.
Mayfair Gold is progressing its 100 percent-owned Fenn-Gib gold project toward production, with a development plan anchored by a robust 2026 pre-feasibility study (PFS). The company’s strategy emphasizes a smaller scale mine designed to accelerate permitting through Ontario’s One Project One Process platform and exploit near surface high-margin ounces in a capital efficient manner. The PFS only corresponds to 24 percent of the indicated gold resource leaving meaningful optionality for long term growth coupled with exploration upside across a broader land package.
Overview
Mayfair Gold (TSXV:MFG,NYSE American:MINE) is a development-stage company with the primary objective of advancing the Fenn-Gib gold project — a large, bulk-tonnage open-pit deposit located in one of Canada’s most prolific gold districts. The company’s technical team is executing on provincial permitting, Indigenous consultation, engineering and ongoing exploration to expand mineralization beyond the current pit constraints.
Mayfair Gold’s flagship Fenn-Gib gold project is located within the established Timmins Gold District in Ontario, which has produced more than 100 million ounces of gold historically.
The PFS, prepared in accordance with NI 43-101 standards and filed in January 2026, outlines a base-case economic model with an after-tax NPV (5 percent) of C$652 million and an IRR of 24 percent, using conservative gold prices, and demonstrates rapid payback potential. Under a spot price scenario, project economics improve markedly, underscoring the asset’s leverage to higher gold prices. With over $200 million in annual free cash flow once in operation the company will have a robust source of capital to fund growth initiatives.
Company Highlights
Robust Pre-feasibility Study: The 2026 PFS highlights compelling returns on a modest initial throughput design while leveraging a large resource base.
High-grade Early Focus: The staged plan targets higher-grade, near-surface material to optimize permitting timelines, construction risk, financing, and ultimately accelerate value capture.
Strategic Location: Fenn-Gib sits on the highly prospective Timmins Gold District, Ontario — a tier-one mining jurisdiction with established infrastructure and a long history of mining-related activity and supportive communities.
Strong Financial Backing: The company has a committed shareholder base, including Muddy Waters, Heeney Capital, Oaktree and Vestcor. With a tight share structure and strong Insider ownership of 35% there is clear alignment for long-term shareholder value creation.
Exploration Optionality: Mineralization at Fenn-Gib remains open at depth and along strike, with multiple underexplored targets identified across the property. This includes a Southern Block that has not been explored but sits directly on the prolific Porcupine-Destor fault.
Long-term optionality: With a truncated timeline to production the company will be in an advantageous spot for growth initiatives that can be funded with free cash flow.
CEO Nick Campbell, heads a technically strong and capital-markets-savvy team with a demonstrated ability to unlock value from high-quality gold assets (previously at Artemis Gold and Silvercrest Metals) and position projects for long-term growth.
COO Drew Anwyll is an experienced mine builder; he successfully permitted the Marathon PGM project in Ontario and was a senior executive during the construction, commissioning and start-up of Detour Lake, Canada’s largest gold mine.
Key Project
Fenn-Gib Gold Project
Fenn-Gib is Mayfair’s flagship asset, encompassing a significant indicated mineral resource of 181.3 million tonnes grading 0.74 g/t gold for 4.3 million contained ounces, and additional inferred ounces. The project benefits from excellent access via Highway 101 and proximity to regional mining services.
The 2026 PFS centers on a 4,800 tonnes-per-day open-pit operation designed to process approximately 1.04 million ounces of gold, representing 24 percent of the total resource and reflecting a conservative, execution-oriented approach. Highlights from the study include:
After-tax NPV of C$1.37 billion and IRR of 38 percent at current spot gold prices. 2.7-year payback period on initial capital costs under the base case (1.7 year payback at January 2026 prices)
In addition to economic studies and active dialogue with Indigenous stakeholders, the company has executed engineering contracts with industry providers to support mine planning, processing design, environmental baseline work, and tailings/water management — positioning the project for upcoming permitting and potential construction decision milestones.
Exploration Potential
Beyond the defined pit shell, Fenn-Gib hosts multiple zones including the Main Zone, Deformation Zone, and Footwall Zone, with geological continuity extending along strike and at depth. Newly identified targets such as the Southern Block along the Porcupine Destor-Fault present opportunities for future discovery drilling and resource expansion.
Management Team
Nicholas Campbell — Chief Executive Officer
Nicholas Campbell is a mining executive with more than 20 years of experience across capital markets, corporate development, and mine development. Prior to joining Mayfair, he served as vice-president of Capital Markets at Artemis Gold, executive vice-president of business development at SilverCrest Metals, and chief financial officer of Goldsource Mines. Campbell leads Mayfair’s strategic vision and execution as the company transitions Fenn‑Gib into a defined development stage.
Drew Anwyll — Chief Operating Officer
Drew Anwyll is a professional engineer with over 30 years of global mining experience in both project and operations leadership. His background includes senior technical and operating roles at Generation Mining, Detour Gold, Barrick Gold and Placer Dome. Anwyll’s track record includes leadership through permitting, construction, commissioning, and operational phases, anchoring Mayfair’s operational planning and execution.
Zayem Lakhani — Vice-president, Capital Markets
Zayem Lakhani brings more than 17 years of expertise in investment management, equity research, and corporate development. Before joining Mayfair, he served as portfolio manager and head of Canadian equities at HSBC Global Asset Management, where he oversaw the investment process for approximately $4 billion in capital across diverse strategies. Lakhani brings a unique network and an investor’s perspective to help position the company’s story.
Darren Prins — Interim Chief Financial Officer
Darren Prins is a senior financial executive with extensive experience in corporate development, capital markets, mergers and acquisitions, financial reporting, risk management, budgeting, forecasting, and international tax planning. Prins has served as CFO for TSX, TSXV and NYSE‑listed companies across multiple industries, bringing strong financial stewardship to Mayfair’s funding and reporting functions.
Mayfair Gold (TSXV: MFG,NYSE American: MINE) is a development-stage company focused on advancing the Fenn-Gib gold project, a large, bulk-tonnage open-pit deposit situated in one of Canada’s most prolific gold districts. The company’s technical team is actively progressing provincial permitting, engaging in Indigenous consultation, advancing engineering, and conducting ongoing exploration to expand the deposit beyond its current pit boundaries.
The Preliminary Feasibility Study (PFS), prepared in accordance with NI 43-101 standards and filed in January 2026, outlines a base-case economic model with an after-tax NPV (5 percent) of C$652 million and an IRR of 24 percent, based on conservative gold prices, demonstrating rapid payback potential. Under a spot price scenario, project economics improve markedly, highlighting the asset’s strong leverage to higher gold prices. Once in operation, the project is expected to generate over $200 million in annual free cash flow, providing a robust source of capital to fund growth initiatives.
Mayfair Gold’s flagship Fenn-Gib gold project is located within the established Timmins Gold District in Ontario, which has produced more than 100 million ounces of gold historically.
Fenn-Gib is Mayfair’s flagship asset, encompassing a significant indicated mineral resource of 181.3 million tonnes grading 0.74 g/t gold for 4.3 million contained ounces, and additional inferred ounces. The project benefits from excellent access via Highway 101 and proximity to regional mining services.
Company Highlights
Robust Pre-feasibility Study: The 2026 PFS highlights compelling returns on a modest initial throughput design while leveraging a large resource base.
High-grade Early Focus: The staged plan targets higher-grade, near-surface material to optimize permitting timelines, construction risk, financing, and ultimately accelerate value capture.
Strategic Location: Fenn-Gib sits on the highly prospective Timmins Gold District, Ontario — a tier-one mining jurisdiction with established infrastructure and a long history of mining-related activity and supportive communities.
Strong Financial Backing: The company has a committed shareholder base, including Muddy Waters, Heeney Capital, Oaktree and Vestcor. With a tight share structure and strong Insider ownership of 35% there is clear alignment for long-term shareholder value creation.
Exploration Optionality: Mineralization at Fenn-Gib remains open at depth and along strike, with multiple underexplored targets identified across the property. This includes a Southern Block that has not been explored but sits directly on the prolific Porcupine-Destor fault.
Long-term optionality: With a truncated timeline to production the company will be in an advantageous spot for growth initiatives that can be funded with free cash flow.
CEO Nick Campbell, heads a technically strong and capital-markets-savvy team with a demonstrated ability to unlock value from high-quality gold assets (previously at Artemis Gold and Silvercrest Metals) and position projects for long-term growth.
COO Drew Anwyll is an experienced mine builder; he successfully permitted the Marathon PGM project in Ontario and was a senior executive during the construction, commissioning and start-up of Detour Lake, Canada’s largest gold mine.
This Mayfair Gold profile is part of a paid investor education campaign.*
Click here to connect with Mayfair Gold (TSXV:MFG) to receive an Investor Presentation
President Donald Trump on Wednesday nominated federal prosecutor Colin McDonald to serve in the newly formed role of assistant attorney general for national fraud enforcement.
McDonald is currently serving as an associate deputy attorney general at the Department of Justice.
‘I am pleased to nominate Colin McDonald to serve as the first ever Assistant Attorney General for National FRAUD Enforcement, a new Division at the Department of Justice, which I created to catch and stop FRAUDSTERS that have been STEALING from the American People,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social.
‘My Administration has uncovered Fraud schemes in States like Minnesota and California, where these thieves have stolen Hundreds of Billions of Taxpayer Dollars,’ he continued.
Trump praised McDonald as a ‘very smart, tough and highly respected America First federal prosecutor who has successfully delivered justice in some of the most difficult and high-stakes cases our country has ever seen.’
‘Together, we will END THE FRAUD, and RESTORE INTEGRITY to our Federal Programs. Congratulations Colin — STOP THE SCAMS!’ the president wrote.
McDonald has been serving in the office of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who said McDonald was ‘instrumental’ in the federal government’s efforts to curb crime across the country.
‘Colin is a rockstar, who was instrumental in our team’s mission of Making America Safe Again,’ Blanche wrote on X. ‘He is a consummate prosecutor who loves God, family, and country and will serve the President and the American people well.’
Vice President JD Vance announced the new role and the creation of the National Fraud Enforcement Division at the Department of Justice during a White House press briefing earlier this month, as the administration seeks to pursue a crackdown on alleged systemic fraud in federal programs, including in Minnesota and California.
‘Colin McDonald is widely regarded as a thorough and highly competent attorney. He has an exceptional prosecutorial track record, which we look forward to seeing him put to use in his new role as Assistant Attorney General,’ Vance said at the time ahead of McDonald’s formal nomination.
Mayfair Gold’s flagship Fenn-Gib gold project is located within the established Timmins Gold District in Ontario, which has produced more than 100 million ounces of gold historically.
Brightstar Resources (BTR:AU) has announced Updated Goldfields DFS Presentation
