Hey folks, before we get into your normal Transom, I need to make a quick point about some things. In my career, I’ve founded multiple publications, and one of the things I know happens is that if you depart these publications but you’re still the most prominent person associated with them, there’s noise whenever they do things after you leave. I sold my shares in RedState and was still getting blowback for whatever Erick Erickson did almost a decade later. It’s just what happens.
In this case, The Federalist decided for reasons completely unbeknownst to me to go after national treasure Dolly Parton this past week, resulting in social media blowback that included me and my wife, threatening emails, vile comments, etc. So, to clarify: I have nothing to do with the editorial decisions of The Federalist and have not for years. I ran the version of The Federalist that published articles suggesting Dolly Parton would be a great president, not the one that exists now as skinny MAGA zombie designed to fulfill the worst caricatures of an angry lonely bald divorced ragemonster. I own a third of the LLC’s shares by dint of being a cofounder, and if anyone wants to buy them off me for an RC Cola, just let me know. In this house, we love Dolly Parton, we play her music for our daughters, and no, we had nothing to do with this stupidity or the losers who propagate it.
So, having hopefully cleared that up, let’s get on to the news.
Europe Turns Right
Freddy Gray on the biggest story of the day and a signal to the world.
Can the “far right” still really be called the “far right” if it becomes the mainstream? That’s a question for political scientists to ponder as Sunday’s European Union elections results came tumbling in.
The right is winning in France, with Marine Le Pen’s National Rally will secure twice as many votes as President Macron’s Renaissance. Macron has already responded to the humiliation by calling for fresh national assembly elections to be held on June 30 and July 7.
In Germany, the AfD, despite a number of scandals, took 16 percent of the vote, making them the second most popular party, ahead of chancellor’s Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats. More than a million people who had voted for the governing coalition have just cast their ballots for AfD, according to one pollster.
By contrast, the German Greens, who usually perform strongly, won just 12 percent of the vote. The center-right Christian Democratic bloc of EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen still came top with 30 percent (her EPP center-right group will be easily the largest in the European Parliament), but only after tacking right on immigration and softening its green policies.
The European Parliament elections are often dismissed as little more than an opinion poll — since the Parliament’s powers are limited and it is the EU Commission which makes the decisions that most affect people’s lives. But the general political direction of the continent is clear: parties that stand strongly against immigration, that embrace anti-globalist rhetoric and reject green ideology are doing well. The Greens are in retreat.
The once-unacceptable right is now in power in Italy, Hungary and Slovakia. It is part of governing coalitions in Sweden (where it is in retreat) and Finland and will be in the Netherlands shortly. It’s leading polls in Belgium and Austria too. After the weekend’s European results, which gave Flemish nationalists a victory, the Belgian prime minister Alexander De Croo announced his resignation.
Britain doesn’t vote in the European Union elections, obviously, because they voted to leave. But their own general election on July 4 looks almost certain to make them an outlier — if Labour comes to power, Britain will move left as the continent goes in the other direction.
But it’s worth remembering that Keir Starmer has had to shift his party away from the left in order to make it acceptable to the masses. And the Conservative Party is being destroyed in no small part for its failure, despite lots of noise about boats and Rwanda, to bring legal and illegal immigration under control. If Nigel Farage’s Reform take over the Conservatives in the polls — which could be about to happen — the anti-establishment right will have triumphed in Britain too.
Emmanuel Macron calls a snap election, fearful of Le Pen’s rise. Conservatives dominate in Germany. The right showed up in surprising ways. Meloni and her coalition were dominant. And here’s more from Fraser Nelson:
After 18 months governing Italy, Meloni has proved she is centre-right, not radical. Her Brothers of Italy did well at the expense of the more rabble-rousing Lega from Matteo Salvini. She is moving Italy more towards the centre: even Ursula von der Leyen now says her centre-right EPP grouping – which came first and did better than predicted with 185 seats (+9) – could work with Meloni’s party.
It’s nonsense to call Meloni’s party ‘post-fascist’ or to pretend that the above parties are part of one ‘far right’ or radical-right lump. Listening to the BBC, who reporters use near-hysterical language about far-right and hard-right, I wonder how its listeners are supposed understand what’s happening on our doorstep. The terms hard-right, far-right, radical right all smack of the partisan reporting we see in America. As a public service broadcaster, the BBC should be aiming at shedding light rather than heat.
At most, these European parties can be jointly categorised together as ‘new right’ – some genuinely racist, some moderate, but all now mainstream in a way that wasn’t the case 15 years ago. They cohere in two blocs in the European Parliament. The Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) are in 4th place with 73 seats (+4) and Identity and Democracy (ID) in 5th place with 58 seats (+9). But as these parties have so little in common, they’re always feuding. As a result, AfD (15 seats, +9) and Fidesz (10 seats, down 13) don’t belong to any group. So let’s not pretend that they are a surging force in Strasbourg.
So how do things look now? Same as they did before. The EPP reigns. Then come the Social Democrats (ie, centre-left) with 137 seats (-2), then the liberal bloc (‘Renew Europe’) in third place. Then the new-right parties (see below). Von der Leyen will almost certainly be given another five-year term and the EU project will continue unchanged.
Hunter Biden and the Compromised DOJ
Don’t see the Hunter Biden gun case as an effort to hold the president’s prodigal son to account, but as a political maneuver aimed at protecting the prosecutors, perhaps the defendant, and certainly his father.
This sideshow diverts the public’s gaze from far larger corruption: Felony gun charges are piddling when weighed against the selling out of our country, not to mention the leverage Hunter’s dubious dealings and debauchery might have provided our enemies in the way of kompromat.
Yes, it features many “shiny objects,” some juicy, and others genuinely newsworthy, from the riveting trainwreck that was Hunter Biden’s life at the time he committed the alleged offenses — lurid details of his drug abuse, relationships and recklessness — to the vindicating-for-The-Post-but-still-unbelievable Justice Department decision to enter the “laptop from hell” into evidence.
Yet while special counsel David Weiss and, by extension, Attorney General Merrick Garland will play this as the Biden Justice Department’s pursuit of even the president’s son without fear or favor, it’s no such thing.
First, Hunter may well be found not guilty, or at least get a hung jury. His team is tugging at the heartstrings of jurors hailing from a state in which the Bidens are royalty.
The defense is diving deep into the tragedies that have befallen their royal family and Hunter’s harrowing struggles with alcohol and drug abuse — struggles with which many of the jurors are likely to sympathize, based on their own experiences.
Biden-friendly media have reported that Joe Biden is concerned about the case, making this a story about a father’s love for his targeted son as well — turning the Bidens not only into potentially sympathetic characters, but victims.
Even a guilty verdict may lose on appeal, gobsmackingly enough, by using as a defense a pro-Second Amendment Supreme Court ruling that Joe Biden has panned.
Yet this case — involving offenses at a remove from Hunter Biden’s father, heard in the most favorable venue for the Bidens that any case could have been brought — was never supposed to happen.
It inadvertently serves as an indictment of prosecution and defense alike.
Recall how we got here: For years, key players at the Justice Department and FBI systematically sabotaged the real case against Hunter Biden.
Prosecutors and investigators ignored or declined to pursue evidence of his serious, compromising, and national security-imperiling misconduct — ranging from alleged violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act to tax evasion connected to the Biden family’s international influence-peddling business.
Most egregiously, prosecutors let the statutes of limitation lapse on material offenses most closely linked to then-Vice President Biden’s policy portfolio.
A pair of IRS agents, appalled at seeing their peers tank the investigation, risked everything and came forward as whistleblowers.
They brought forth reams of evidence — all through proper congressional channels — tracking how federal law enforcement had protected the Bidens.
Their evidence was only compounded by the fact that the same federal forces were simultaneously engaging in an ever-intensifying jihad against Donald Trump.
Caught in a potential scandal, the Delaware US Attorney’s Office colluded with Hunter Biden’s legal team to concoct a sweetheart plea deal containing a global immunity get-out-of-jail-free card that insulated Biden from all of the most serious charges he might otherwise have faced.
But the deal collapsed under questioning from Delaware Judge Maryellen Noreika, forcing Garland to appoint Weiss special counsel.
Seen in this light, the current trial is clearly a fig leaf aimed at rehabilitating the Justice Department while putting Hunter Biden before the most hospitable possible jury — all at a far remove from conduct remotely relating to his father.
The pending Los Angeles case against Hunter Biden is only slightly less deceptive.
It at least deals with alleged financial crimes stemming from his work in the Biden “family business” monetizing his father’s name, including at the tail end of Joe’s vice presidency.
But the indictment never makes reference to that name. And prosecutors further distract from the underlying corruption by focusing, in great detail, on Hunter’s lavish spending on escorts and exotic cars.
Feature
The Foundation of American Folly.
Items of Interest
Foreign
Why Biden’s ceasefire proposal failed.
Netanyahu speech may be boycotted by Democrats.
How Israel saved a hostage rescue mission that almost failed.
In Canada, treason allegations roil parliament.
Why Hamas isn’t the only issue.
India’s religious nationalism.
Domestic
Kessler: Your government at work.
Merrick Garland faces contempt vote.
Trump endorses Sam Brown in Nevada.
House primaries Tuesday: Will Mace survive?
Lawfare
Trump probation interview today.
2024
Whitmer voices concern about RFK.
Biden tries to boost Dem hopes with more aggressive campaign.
Media
A slow-rolling nightmare in the WSJ.
CBS’s Brennan shocked to learn most Americans want illegals deported.
Health
Drug shortages rise, raising concerns.
Ephemera
House of the Dragon: a character study.
Bad Boys 4 blows up the box office.
Podcast
Quote
“We are learning to do a great many clever things…The next great task will be to learn not to do them.”
— G.K. Chesterton