The true story of this election? Populism is here to stay British voters are wriggling out of the straitjacket of elite consensus opinion. It is wonderful to witness. Brendan O’Neill

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/07/05/the-true-story-of-this-election-populism-is-here-to-stay/

There has been an earthquake in British politics, reporters say. Everyone from the Guardian to the Sun to CNN is reaching for the metaphor of shifting tectonic plates to describe Labour’s victory over the Tories in the General Election. And in a sense they’re right. The political ground has shaken. Rumblings have been felt. But it wasn’t drab, grey Labour that did it – it was the millions of voters who rejected both Labour and the Tories and in the process delivered one of the most devastating sucker punches to the political duopoly in decades.

To see the true quake, you need to look beyond Labour’s mirage-like landslide. As is now becoming clear, Labour has not been swept to power on anything like a wave of public enthusiasm. On the contrary, it won its 412 seats on the second lowest electoral turnout since 1885, and more as a result of people’s exhaustion with the Tories than their love for Sir Keir. No, it is those who refused to vote Labour who have brilliantly unsettled British politics. It is those who took a punt on Nigel Farage’s Reform party who have planted a bomb in the political landscape that will not be easily defused.

For me, the most fascinating stat of the election is the share of the vote received by Labour and the Tories. Labour won around 34 per cent of vote, the Tories around 24 per cent. Let’s leave to one side what a lame landslide it is if only 34 per cent of the people who could be bothered to vote put an X in your box. More striking is the fact that the combined vote share of Labour and the Tories, the parties that have dominated British politics for a century, was 58 per cent. That is staggeringly – and, if you will allow me, hilariously – low.

To put it in historical context: at the last General Election, in 2019, their combined vote share was 75.8 per cent. In 2017 it was even higher: 82.4 per cent. In the elections of the 2000s it hovered around 70 per cent. Why has it now dropped to less than 60 per cent, giving rise to the possibility that in the next few years the two parties that have run this country for decades might see their combined vote drop to less than half of all votes cast? Largely, because of Reform. And a few independents, too. Reform’s vote share is around 14 per cent, enough to shatter the Labour / Tory duopoly and to unravel the two big parties’ arrogant belief that they and they alone have a right to rule.

ISIS Moves on Uganda: Islamic Militants Threaten Christian Majority Countries by Uzay Bulut

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20742/uganda-islamic-militants-isis

In recent years, Uganda has faced a growing threat from radical Islamic groups, notably “Allied Democratic Forces — National Army for the Liberation of Uganda” (ADF-NALU) and the Islamic State (ISIS) — which have targeted Christians and escalated security concerns.

“ADF-NALU has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. Meanwhile, ISIS has also claimed responsibility for various attacks.” – Uganda: full country dossier, Open Doors, March 2024.

Uganda and other African nations — especially Sudan, Nigeria, Algeria, Tunisia, Burkina Faso, Chad, Ivory Coast, Mali, Madagascar, Mozambique, Mauritania, Cameroon, Kenya, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Tanzania — are increasingly suffering at the hands of radical Islamists. They are proof of how much even majority non-Muslim, secular nations are vulnerable at the hands of jihadist groups. To prevent jihadists from massacring, abusing or enslaving non-Muslims, and taking over the continent, countries need immediately to crack down on all extremist groups. Do not grant them space to operate.

June 16 marked the one-year anniversary of a sickening terror attack at a Christian boarding school in western Uganda, in which Islamist terrorists murdered 42 people.

On June 16, 2023, the Islamist “Allied Democratic Forces” (ADF), based in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), invaded the compound of the private Mpondwe Lhubiriha Secondary School in Uganda’s Kasese District.

Islamic militants firebombed student dormitories; students fleeing the fire were either gunned down or hacked to death with machetes. Students trapped in the dormitories burned to death as the terrorists shouted “Allahu akbar!” (“Allah is the greatest!”). Some of the victims’ bodies, burnt beyond recognition, required DNA testing to identify them. Six students were kidnapped.

Explaining the Greatness of the Founders By Jack Butler

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/explaining-the-greatness-of-the-founders/

Founding-era historian Gordon Wood identifies some important sources of the Founders’ genius.

EXCERPT:

Through their noble yet accessible commitments, the Founders not only distinguished themselves from their predecessors and English contemporaries. They also provided a template, whatever its imperfections, that stands out to us today. It is a template of which many — most — modern leaders fall short. We are fortunate, then, that the Founders possessed sufficient virtue to have “accomplished a revolution which has no parallel in the annals of human society.”

Inside Cyber: How AI, 5G, and Quantum Computing Will Transform Privacy and Our Security 1st Edition by Chuck Brooks

AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER

In an era where technological innovation evolves at an exponential rate, Inside Cyber: How AI, 5G, and Quantum Computing Will Transform Privacy and Our Security by Chuck Brooks emerges as a critical roadmap for understanding and leveraging the next wave of tech advancements. Brooks, a renowned executive and consultant, breaks down complex technological trends into digestible insights, offering a deep dive into how emerging technologies will shape the future of industry and society. 

In the book, you’ll: 

Gain clear, accessible explanations of cutting-edge technologies such as AI, blockchain, and quantum computing, and their impact on the business world 
Learn how to navigate the cybersecurity landscape, safeguarding your business against the vulnerabilities introduced by rapid technological progress 
Uncover the opportunities that technological advancements present for disrupting traditional industries and creating new value 

Perfect for entrepreneurs, executives, technology professionals, and anyone interested in the intersection of tech and business, Inside Cyber equips you with the knowledge to lead in the digital age. Embrace the future confidently with this indispensable guide. 

Americans Want to Know Who is Really in Charge in the White House Whether Biden remains in office for the remainder of his term or lets Harris take over, our country is facing a leadership crisis that puts U.S. national security at serious risk. Fred Fleitz

https://amgreatness.com/2024/07/05/americans-want-to-know-who-is-really-in-charge-in-the-white-house/

In last Thursday’s presidential debate, we saw the most decisive loss ever by an incumbent American president. Biden’s performance was so abysmal that it raises serious questions about how he can continue to function as president, especially in his role as commander-in-chief.

Donald Trump dominated the debate, making important new criticisms that Biden failed to answer—especially how the surge in illegal immigration during the Biden presidency is hurting social security. Trump put Biden on the defensive, parried tough questions, and pointed out how many of Biden’s statements were incoherent.

Biden could hardly have done worse. He was incoherent, lost his train of thought and appeared confused. He offered no believable defenses for his record as president. The defenses he did provide made no sense.

The left-wing publication Slate gave this stark assessment of Biden’s performance in the debate, claiming it “revealed that [he] is indeed an old man who appears to be in no condition to be running this country, even now—not to mention in another four years.”

Many Americans had the same concern after the debate.

We saw Biden staring into space and looking slack-jawed with his eyes glazed over when Trump spoke. If Biden acts this way during Oval Office meetings, cabinet meetings, and meetings with foreign leaders, one has to ask: How is he making decisions as president?  Is Biden simply signing everything his staff puts in front of him?  Do unnamed White House advisers run cabinet meetings while Biden sits motionless in his chair?

The Democrats’ civil war has begun The unholy alliance of oligarchs and identitarians is about to come apart. Joel Kotkin

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/07/04/the-democrats-civil-war-has-begun/

Let the great Democratic civil war begin. The impending demise of Joe Biden and the patched-together coalition he represents is threatening to accelerate the very intra-party conflicts his presidency was meant to assuage.

In 2020, Biden was able to cobble together the remains of the old Rooseveltian New Deal coalition, along with huge support from both the oligarchic elite and the progressive left. This was possible in large part because the repellant Donald Trump alienated not only the left, including the rising Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), but also dominant elites and numerically strong moderate liberals.

Today, as the Republicans unite around Trump, the Democratic alliance has become creaky. As has been happening for decades, much of the traditional New Deal coalition has further abandoned the party. Biden’s inflationary policies and embrace of progressive cultural and environmental priorities have not gone down well with the traditional base of mostly working-class voters. This has been particularly alienating given that the majority of Democrats consider themselves moderate or even conservative.

Biden’s performance, even before last week’s disastrous presidential debate, has unsettled more than just his core voter base. It has also rattled the oligarchic elite that funded his 2020 campaign, as well as the party apparatus and its media appendages. They may still conveniently genuflect to cultural progressivism and climate-change hysteria, but are less likely to want a mass redistribution of wealth and other curbs on their power. There have been tentative signs, at least on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley, that some are now contemplating support for Trump instead. These defectors may be few in number, but they reek of money.

Increasingly, the one reliable – and vocal – bloc of Democrats resides on the far left. This faction backed Biden in 2020 against Trump, despite his relatively moderate political record. The idea was to influence his administration afterwards. It would be an ‘evolution’, as Squad congresswoman Pramila Jayapal described it. Biden largely accommodated to this agenda, at least rhetorically, championing issues from Net Zero targets to the promotion of transgender ideology.

The United States cannot afford a 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. president The rats are cornered and can be expected to be as vicious as they are unscrupulous Roger Kimball

https://thespectator.com/politics/united-states-10-4-president-biden/

In 1927, Sigmund Freud published a book about religion called Die Zukunft einer Illusion (The Future of an Illusion). As a contribution to the understanding of religion, it is, like much of Freud’s work, both banal and outrageous. But it occurs to me that its catchy title as well as its main thesis — religion, Freud wrote, was invented to fulfill “the oldest, strongest and most urgent wishes of mankind” — has a certain pertinence to the large-scale entertainment now being offered to the public by Democrats eager to salvage the reputation of President Joe Biden.

The narrative, according to which Joe Biden was “sharp and intensely probing,” had been assiduously maintained by mendacious Democrats and their sycophantic lackeys in the media since before Biden became president. Few people outside that circle of magical thinking actually believed in Biden’s cognitive competence. I and many others have been calling attention to his debility for years. But the illusion has been cynically cultivated by uniparty lieutenants much as the illusory nostrums of communist solidarity were propped up by the Soviets as their regime teetered towards is final, senescent collapse in the late 1980s. Few people believed the illusion; everyone in power said they believed it, even though they could taste the cynicism and disbelief among the masses they sought to control. That curious dialectic of disbelief and acquiescence was part of the corrosive rust that eventually precipitated the collapse of the regime.

Has the uniparty changed its song about Joe Biden? There are signs that it has. In the immediate aftermath of Biden’s disastrous debate with Donald Trump last week, the narrative broke in two, or at least seemed to break in two. On one side there was horror and — word of the moment — “panic” among the Dems. The New York Times led the way in calling for Biden — for the good of the country — to resign. At the same time, there was considerable push back, encapsulated comically in the observation that dementia Joe “had a cold,” hence his gibbering incoherence. St. Barack weighed in with what appeared to be a supportive post of X: everyone has bad debate nights, he said, but “this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary people his entire life [Obama meant Biden, in case you were wondering] and someone who only cares about himself [the bad orange man].”

At Columbia, the Jew-Hating Plot Thickens Three deans placed on leave for derisive, anti-Semitic text messages. by Hugh Fitzgerald

https://www.frontpagemag.com/at-columbia-the-jew-hating-plot-thickens/

“Three Columbia Deans Placed on Leave Pending Investigation,” by Eliana Johnson, Washington Free Beacon, June 20, 2024:

Three of the Columbia University deans caught exchanging dismissive text messages during a May 31 panel on anti-Semitism have been placed on leave as the university investigates the incident, a spokesman for the school said Thursday.

As part of the college’s alumni reunion week, Columbia College administrators, knowing of the alarm expressed by many alumni at the stories of antisemitic harassment of Jewish students by anti-Israel and pro-Hamas demonstrators on the campus, and the claims by Jews that they received no support from the administration, decided to put on a show. Jewish students would be allowed to publicly air their complaints, as participants in a panel discussion on May 31, in the presence of several Columbia College deans, faculty members, and members of the alumni reunion classes, who would be able to observe this airing of grievances, as a way to allay fears that the college administrators were not doing enough to address the Jewish students’ claims of harassment and violence.

“The Dean of Columbia College informed his team today that three administrators have been placed on leave pending a university investigation of the incident that occurred at the College alumni reunion several weeks ago,” the spokesman said.

That dean, Josef Sorett, who also took part in the text exchanges, “reiterated his commitment to learning from this situation and other incidents over the last year to build a community of respect and healthy dialogue.”

The three deans placed on leave, Susan Chang-Kim, Matthew Patashnick, and Cristen Kromm, were captured—along with Sorett—exchanging derisive and anti-Semitic text messages.

Two SCOTUS Cases Show How an Unaccountable Administrative State Hurts ‘Ordinary People’ “They are the ones who suffer the worst kind of regulatory whiplash.” by Jacob Sullum

https://www.frontpagemag.com/two-scotus-cases-show-how-an-unaccountable-administrative-state-hurts-ordinary-people/

After the U.S. Supreme Court curtailed the powers of federal agencies in two cases last week, progressive critics predictably complained that the decisions favored “big business,” “corporate interests” and “the wealthy and powerful.” That gloss overlooked the reality that people with little wealth or power frequently are forced to contend with overweening bureaucrats who invent their own authority and play by their own rules.

In the more consequential case, the court repudiated the Chevron doctrine, which required that judges defer to a federal agency’s “permissible” interpretation of an “ambiguous” statute. The majority said that rule, which the court established in 1984, was unworkable, creating “an eternal fog of uncertainty” about what the law allows or requires, and fundamentally misguided, allowing the executive branch to usurp a judicial function.

Although People for the American Way perceived a win for “the corporate interests that have been itching to gut the power of federal agencies to protect our health and welfare,” the dispute at the center of the case complicates that picture. Two family-owned fishing operations objected to onerous regulatory fees they said had never been authorized by Congress.

In a concurring opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch noted other examples of vulnerable supplicants who suffer when agencies are free to rewrite the laws under which they operate. He cited cases involving a veteran seeking disability benefits and an immigrant fighting to remain in the country.

Because of an arbitrary rule the Department of Veterans Affairs invented for its own convenience, Thomas Buffington lost three years of disability benefits the government owed him. Alfonzo De Niz Robles faced deportation and separation from his American wife and children after the Board of Immigration Appeals overturned a judicial precedent on which he and many other immigrants had relied for relief.

Rishi Sunak concedes defeat as Labour Party heads for sweeping UK election victory

https://www.aol.com/news/labour-party-set-end-14-215636362.html

Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak conceded defeat to the opposition Labour Party as voters in the UK general election delivered a devastating verdict on 14 years of Conservative rule.

As results poured in from around the UK, the center-left Labour Party was on course to win Britain’s general election by a landslide. Party leader Keir Starmer celebrated the victory in front of supporters at the Tate Modern art gallery in London. “Change begins now. It feels good, I have to be honest,” he said.

Sunak said he had called Starmer to congratulate him, and added that he took personal responsibility for the crushing defeat. “I am sorry,” Sunak said after becoming one of a lonely band of Conservative figures to retain their seats.

An exit poll predicted that Labour would win 410 seats, while the Conservatives will drop to just 131 seats, a rejection of the ruling party by Britain’s electorate that had been anticipated for months.

“The Labour Party has won this general election,” Sunak said. “The British people have delivered a sobering verdict tonight. There is much to learn and reflect on, and I take responsibility for the loss,” he said.

Reform UK, an insurgent rightwing populist party led by Nigel Farage, was on course to take a handful of seats – and split the right-wing vote around the country, contributing to the Conservatives’ defeat. “This, folks, is huge,” Farage said in video message, shortly before it was announced he had won his first seat in the UK parliament.