Hungarian News

EU needs to move quickly to majority voting or at least a voting system in which Putin’s Trojan horse is unable to hold the other countries to ransom

And it has become obvious for everybody that Hungary is just another of those sh*thole countries (like in Africa or South America or …) where it’s useless to try to reason with the leaders – only brute force will work and that of course means money.
Of course these countries use their powers like giving “golden passports” to criminals if they pay well but in the long run they will all be identified and treated as they should be.

Czeh has a very valid point.
But in the EU realm, buying off opponents for the sake of making “unanimous” decisions is an old practice.
Unfortunate for the Hungarian opposition and unfortunate for democracy as such, because Orbán stirs up issues from a much bigger pot – mixing populist geopolitical themes with EU politics.
How the EU will move and act to contain that, remains to be seen.

Yes, as Mr Mueller says:
Ironically, that outcome further reinforces arguments against European enlargement. After all, as the Hungarian government has demonstrated for all the world to see, once you are inside the European club, it seems nobody can force you to abide by the club’s rules.
So his friends in Serbia etc won’t be happy – no sane person in the EU wants them because they are similar to O.

The ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court is complex and 133 pages long. https://www.courts.state.co.us/Courts/Supreme_Court/Case_Announcements/Files/2023/6D478012_19_23.pdf While it would seem simple that the US Supreme Court will overturn the decision based on an appeal from Trump its more complex than that.

Under US law state supreme courts cannot have decisions relating state laws exclusive to their laws overturned by the Federal Supreme Court. Only in cases of contradictions of state and federal law can the US Supreme Court overturn and interpretation of Colorado state law.

The Colorado Supreme Court is sovereign relating to interpretation of Colorado State law except in that situation of contradiction discussed above. Orban understands none of that.

So unlike in the European system where regional units of government are part of fully national governments, in the US state governments have real power and sovereignty.

The podcasters are quite astute. But they don’t take into account the extent of Far-Right, bought influence, in minor nationalist parties in Europe.
They will come forward in defense of Orbán, as the lines draw up, in return for the funding.
Back in 2018, several EU national conservatives spoke up in favor of Orbán, saying he defended European values and how was a legitimate, democratically elected leader..

The protesting women in Russia must be cause for some concern by Putin, or he probably wouldn’t bother to use them in his propaganda.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/25/russia-military-wives-mothers-protest-against-putin-war-ukraine-troops-female

Well, this might not be a typical story, but …
I’ve probably written about it before.
My father came to Germany in 1935 from his home near Danzig (Polish Gdansk) because he was not happy with the developments there, his police job and joined the German army. Hitler was asking around and making good offers so my father became a Feldwebel (sergeant) in 1938 and later participated in the several Blitzkriegs.
He also met a nice Schwab girl and in early 1939 he “knew” that something big was coming and asked her to marry him. Afaik he fought in Czechoslovakia and in France but came home every few months.
This also happened after the war in Russia started because he had become an officer then.
So he and his wife were kind of lucky compared to regular soldiers which often didn’t see their wives and family for a long time.
It got worse when the war against Russia started but even then he had holidays and went home maybe once a year – that was when I was conceived (summer of 42) as a souvenir to his wife from him because he knew that he might stay or die somewhere in Russia – because at that time it was already clear to him that the war was lost.
He was lucky in a way to be hit by a shrapnel and sent home in late 1944 -one of my uncles was not so lucky and disappeared without a trace.
We did not talk much about the war, my parents told me some anecdotes however.