The toll road "deal" between the Hungarian state and Orban's ex-plumber turned richest oligarch will cost an estimated $41 billion…
April 1, 2024
Tonight, the Orban regime submitted a meager three amendments to their [non-]constitution: change in article 9: the justice minister does…
The same applies to EU, where China exercises moderate, but effective, political influence through diplomacy. For instance, against official protests…
There has been a lot of PRC investment here in the USA for years. The recent decision to force the…
On media freedom in the EU, especially Hungary: This is especially true in Hungary, where the media have long been…
Turkish local elections:
Erdogan’s party was heavily defeated in Istanbul & Ankara.
Istanbul (at 0.11% of the electoral boxes are not yet opened)
CHP (main opposition party) 51.81%
AKP (Erdogan): 40.11%
Ankara (at 1.58% of the electoral boxes are not yet opened)
CHP (main opposition party): 60.78%
AKP (Erdogan): 31.68%
https://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/31-mart-yerel-secim-sonuclari
There was widespread electoral fraud in some remote Kurdish provinces.
Tens of thousands of voters were bussed in to make it difficult for the Kurdish party to win in the southeastern Sirnak and Bitlis provinces.
Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) statement:
Erdogan’s “AKP is attempting to obtain the results it couldn’t reach through illegal voters in Sirnak by resorting to ballot frauds, attacking our voters and ballot officials, detaining our provincial co-chairs and hundreds of people, and besieging our provincial headquarters”
In Bitlis, the ruling AKP is “trying to alter the ballot results through frauds once again, attempting to usurp the will of our people.”
It is really strange.
In Van province, the counting has been finished (only 2.5% of the boxes are not opened yet).
In the nearby Igdir province 64.2% of the urns are not opened yet.
In Sirnak, this number is 37.2%, in Bitlis it is 50.4% at this moment.
A quick summary shows a story of lost Hungarian influence, through Erdogan.
Orbán must be hard at work right now.
A US friend just sent me the latest news:
Since his bible is such a big success Donald decided:
TRUMP DROPS OUT OF PRESIDENTIAL RACE, DECIDES TO BE A POPE
Someone sent a correction. There’s a spelling error here – it should have been “poop” …
There are also multiple definitions of poop in English dictionaries. The one defined as “excrement” is considered as informal North American English. Whereas the word “shit” is considered not informal North American English, but rather as universal “vulgar” English.
Of course aspects of Black English in the USA are only now being recognized as common North American English.
Oxford Languages, a division of Oxford University Press and publisher of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), and Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African & African American Research are launching a three-year research project, whose aim is to compile the Oxford Dictionary of African American English (ODAAE). The project is funded in part by grants from the Mellon and Wagner Foundations.
To be honest it’s a project desperately needed over here.
What is interesting Wolf is here in the USA April fools jokes, especially related to former President Trump, are seen as too possible to many people. So the more liberal National Public Radio (NPR) has effectively banned them from being aired.
NPR had a tradition of creating fake news stories on April 1 intergraded with its newscasts that were often perceived as real.
There was the one about how President Reagan’s administration had decided to sell Arizona to Canada. Some people believed that. A story about how former disgraced President Nixon had decided to run again in 1992. People were outraged. How could he run a third time? It’s unconstitutional.
Trump now regularly says in his campaign speeches things that are totally false and when called on it says after the fact it was a metaphor or a joke.
I mean having limited Hungarian language skills, but enough to get in trouble, some stories in the news that are not jokes appear to me to be implausible.
Example being the purge carried out by Orban for the pardoning the former deputy director of a state-run children’s home last year for his conviction as an accomplice in a child sexual abuse case. The part I found unbelievable was that the pardon was issued to along with around two dozen others on the occasion of Pope Francis’ April 2023 visit to Hungary.
I have one cousin in Esztergom who is an open supporter of the opposition, much to the distress of most of the family, who is usually reliable so I asked him ez igazi? He assured me it was true.
Down here in hard right Republican Texas where I am now the current governor issues various proclamations that no legal standing that are shocking but Trump supporters think are just great. Trump likes them too.
By the way our Huskies created a stir from neighbors who called the county animal control center and claimed we had wild wolfs running around our rental property. They came out and petted the dogs and said this has happened before warning us some good old boys might shoot at them, so keep them out of sight please.
Here’s a chance for all iving in Hungary to publish your political ideas:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/28/people-in-hungary-share-your-political-hopes-for-the-future
Hidden in a new “salad” (omnibus) bill, the Orban government want to have the right to take away the ownership of any company and give it to anyone of their choosing.
Remember that Orban’s son-in-law recently wanted to obtain the Hungarian branch of the Austrian grocery chain SPAR , but SPAR rejected this and reported Orban’s mafia methods to the European Union.
https://cdn.kormany.hu/uploads/document/2/2d/2d6/2d6106a650fae0fcea5a90d46c3504c218b01f53.pdf
https://hvg.hu/kkv/20240402_gazdasagi-versenyhivatal-versenytorveny-alapveto-jelentosegu-vallalkozas
Orban’s son-in-law and Russian oligarch Rahimkulov want to take over the Austrian grocery chain SPAR in Hungary.
https://telex.hu/gazdasag/2024/04/04/rahimkulov-tiborcz-spar-magyarorszag
Turkish illiberal non-democracy:
The mayoral race in the town of Van resulted in the following result:
(Kurdish) DEM party candidate Zeydan: 240.6 K vote (55.48%)
(Erdogan’s) AKP party candidate Arvas: 120.1 K vote (27.15%)
After the election, the winner was retroactively disqualified and the mayoral post was awarded to Erdogan’s candidate.
The method (Orban is paying attention):
“Five minutes before the end of working hours on Friday, the Turkish justice ministry objected to Van’s court decision to reinstate party’s Van candidate Abdullah Zeydan’s suspended rights, with the chief prosecutor’s office appealing to the court to revoke the decision on the same day, rendering his candidacy invalid.
“On the same day, the court revoked the final decision on the suspended rights [of Zeydan] and rejected the request for reinstatement,”
“The same court that had decided to accept the reinstatement of the suspended rights of our co-Mayor Abdullah Zeydan, violated its own decision and undermined the rule of law.
https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/turkey/02042024
I’m sure the Turkish elections had every possible way of cheating working for Erdogan’s allies. It would be naive not to expect that.
The result is a huge testament to the resistance.
Hungarians do not trust the Orban government.
When Orban took power, 3% of the savings were kept in banks abroad.
Now this number is 12%
(1676.6 billion Ft = $4.58 billion at this minute.
This implies that the total savings of the Hungarians is $38.2 billion,
i.e. 1.47 million Ft = $4,000 per capita)
https://bank360.hu/blog/kulfoldi-bankbetet-ezermilliardot-vittek-ki
The regime is learning from its scandals.
Another omnibus (“salad”) bill submitted:
The justice minister will have the right to look into the documents of the prosecution.
https://444.hu/2024/04/03/tuzson-bence-torvenyt-modositana-hogy-barmikor-nyom-nelkul-belenezhessen-az-ugyeszsegi-iratokba
https://kormany.hu/dokumentumtar/az-igazsagugyi-targyu-torvenyek-modositasarol
https://www.parlament.hu/irom42/08004/08004.pdf
https://www.facebook.com/peter.magyar.102/posts/7878728185494894
A two-billion dollar corruption and waste:
the “Mathias Corvinus Collegium”
Details:
https://telex.hu/direkt36/2024/04/04/kiszivarogtak-az-mcc-luxuskoltesei-a-100-millios-teli-tabortol-a-kirivoan-draga-fogadasokig
A very interesting essay (rather long) on the story of Steve Bannon and Dohttps://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/04/steve-bannon-maga-january-6/nald Trump:
US news:
Sorry to bring this topic back, but this effects the US election.
Biden just gave an ultimatum to Netanyahu to declare a one-sided ceasefire even if Israel does not get back the hostages.
(In reality, there is a lull in fighting in the last two months, Israel withdrew all of its reservists – the bulk of its troops from Gaza in February)
The US spokesman again brought up food shortage in Gaza as a reason for demanding a one-sided cease-fire. As I mentioned earlier, this premise of famine is a lie.
Hamas says Gaza has 2.3 million inhabitants, UN accepts 2.2, other sources think there are 1.9 million inhabitants.
Suppose there are 2.3 million Gazans. UN data show that every day the trucks entering Gaza bring in more than 1.16 kilogram (almost 3 pounds) of food per capita. through Rafah and Kerem Shalom.
In the last 30 days, 5077 trucks + 641 tankers entered Gaza through Rafah and Kerem Shalom with supplies for the civilian population.
[March 04, April 03]
food: 80.130 million kg (on 3668 trucks)
shelter equipment: 784 trucks,
medical supplies: 212 trucks
+ water trucks + fuel tankers + cooking gas tankers
(Plus the airdrops. Plus the trucks entering Gaza with food from Israel at the middle of the Strip.)
As Trump remarked yesterday (and he was right this time) Israel is horrible with PR.
Anyhow, I am collecting the daily data to know the truth. And I am sharing the numbers with you.
Israel admits they were blocking crossings.
Israel to reopen Erez crossing into Gaza after Biden sounds warning over protecting civilians | Israel-Gaza war | The Guardian
About the lull in fighting
Playbook PM: Worldwide fallout after the World Central Kitchen strike – POLITICO
UN on food situation in Gaza
Imminent famine in northern Gaza is ‘entirely man-made disaster’: Guterres | UN News
UNWR on food supply to Gaza.
UNRWA Situation Report #99 on the situation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem | UNRWA
Before the Hamas attack, thousands of Gazans entered Israel through the Érez crossing every day to work in Israel. There was no freight traffic here. This is new.
Hamas demolished the border post on October 7 and tried to enter Israeli villages and towns from here under the cover of 3000 missiles from the Gaza strip.
That’s history. Since when does history prevent crossings to be opened to bring food to hungry civilians?
History or tradition is a poor excuse.
Back to Hungary:
Orbán just received a medal from the Serbs in Bosnia. Now who was the recipient of this medal last year?
No, not Trump or … – it was Putin of course who also is a big friend of the Serbians.
https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/viktor-orban-nimmt-umstrittenen-orden-der-republika-srpska-von-milorad-dodik-an-a-745d2823-15a3-462f-befe-806e56157a07
Of course that’s another point why the latge majority of the EU does not want the West Balkan as members. One might even say that anything that Orbàn and Szijarto etc propose will be automatically disputed by the EU majority.
It seems however that the right wingers expect to get much stronger in the EP elections in June but I don’t believe that.
And even if they got a majority the democratic countries in Scandinavia e g could block them with a veto – just like Fidesz likes to do.
Here’s the story in English:
https://telex.hu/english/2024/04/05/orban-likely-to-ruffle-feathers-if-he-really-accepts-the-medal-that-putin-also-received
Funny that this is one of the stories about Hungary that immediately made its way into other media.
The Soviet tradition of making christmas trees out of loyalists persists. He might even get a chance to pose the parade uniform in public, for a picture, in an obscure, ex-Soviet forum, like an official “Sheriff” event in Transnistria.
Otherwise, it’s one more for the dressing-mirror, I guess.
He might be able to pick up a few orders from North Korea (China) and Mexico too!
The whole Kossuth and entering streets are full!
It looks beautiful 😍
I am abroad (not in Israel 🙂 ),
so I was watching the demonstration on the internet live.
Lots of people. But I found Magyar’s speech flat, and he did not bring any new corruption facts. I think the initially enthusiastic crowd became less so, and fewer people will show up on Mother’s day.
I hope I am wrong.
I was at Kossuth. The people present were from every part of Hungary, I saw many city and county names held up. There were very emotional and binding together parts, especially with the music.The speakers were partly convincing, but as you wrote not Peter Magyar. The number was amazing, it was almost like after the elections of 2018, when the first day of parliament was opened after the elections.
I can not analyse this demonstration. For me there were not enough emotions, not enough will to kick the regime out, too much effort not to criticize anyone present. I can’t put it in words, but the mass didn’t have a common idea.
The regime will not be alarmed by this one I guess.
I hope, although I still do not like the Peter Magyar that something good will grow out of this.
Back in the day, the East Germans, and a little later, the Romanians, only had second-line political profiles (knee deep in the political climate) as speakers.
Of course, things developed very differently in the two countries.
The popular protest was the motor.
I lived in Germany during “die Wende”, the Honecker regime was bankrupt, and people were recognizing it. “Wir sind das Volk” was very powerful, every Monday masses were on the street.
People escaped the GDR via embassies, and they had the BRD behind them.
Hungary was the first country to let people out. It is crazy how things have changed.
If you want to hear a really ugly representative of PIS read this from Professor Ryszard Legutko
https://hungarytoday.hu/prof-ryszard-legutko/
He is the leader of the PIS in he EP and defends “Christian values” which as usual means hate against LGBTQ, downgrading women etc
Wiki also has something on him:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryszard_Legutko
Wll at least the Poles are cleverer than the Huns and the Slovaks and took the power away from PIS.
“when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors—
when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you—
when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice—
you may know that your society is doomed.
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
https://444.hu/2024/04/08/orban-viktor-azonnali-kerdesekre-valaszol-a-parlamentben
There is only one way to counter corruption – Documented and independently confirmed transparency..In Hungary/balkan, that is difficult, because the general public accepts corruption as the main motivation for holding national office.
Of course all of those things have been true here in Chicago since the late 1700s when a Black French trader named Jean Baptiste Point du Sable set up a trading post. His specialty was trading whiskey for pelts.
He was married a Potawatomi Native American woman, Kitihawa, and that much improved his ability to create a subservient group natives he could cheat.
In 1800, DuSable sold everything he had for $1200 at the time but is around $24,209 today. For all his destruction of native people he is today praised by Chicago’s Black politicians who renamed a major road after him.
My grandfather and great uncle arrived in Chicago in the early 1900s and it was completely corrupt. So of course they joined in the corruption themselves including loaning money to what were called back then Bohunks who emigrated from Austro-Hungary at astronomical interest rates. In some ways they followed in the tradition of DuSable cheating and scheming.
Isn’t it funny, that the regime, and the churches in Hungary never react on facts , but only argue with the “tone” or “style” or “lack of respect” how the critique is given? Or go for an attack on the people who criticize them?
The Reformed Church objects to the tone and style in which they have been talked about in recent weeks | 24.hu
The EU agreement on immigration and general migration from 3’rd world countries will fuel hard-right support in EU.
Why? Because it’s about real (and desperate) people, not just figures.
New bill:
the Orban government will restrict the independence of judges and (the already very limited independence) of prosecutors.
Details:
https://helsinkifigyelo.444.hu/2024/04/11/indul-a-biroi-es-ugyeszi-dontesek-feletti-kormanyzati-kontroll
The possiblw rise of the far right in the EU is discussed here:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/11/putin-far-right-europe-ukraine-eu-slovakia-russian
Many people expect those parties in the ECR and ID to get together more than 20% of the votes in the EU elections.So they mighr wabt to be part of the EU “government” even – but I still hope that they won’t be able to cooperate with other parties considering thei support of the Russian aggressor.
That is one of the more dominant signs of the times we live in, and has been so for about ten years now.
The far right leaders and media share political dna with traditional totalitarian dictators, through glorifying the “Strong Men” and speaking about combattting “weakness”, defined as a pluralistic democracy.
When you add to that, the culture-wars and real wars, the problems of migration and climate, etc, more and more people will tend to support the over-simplifying strong man idiom because they feel threatned and insecure – It’s happened several times before and seems to be one of the inevitable political challenges of dealing with big transnational crises.
Having just returned to Chicago from a month living in Texas (70 miles from the Mexican border), the support for Trump among white Texans and right wing Texans from pre-US seizure of Texas called Tejanos (Spanish speaking Castilians) seemed very high to me. So obviously we are seeing the same rightward drift in the US led by the madman Trump.
Secret documents reveal that Orbán’s people were behind the purchase of Euronews.
https://www.direkt36.hu/en/bizalmas-iratok-leplezik-le-hogy-orbanek-titokban-finansziroztak-az-egyik-legnagyobb-europai-tevecsatorna-megvasarlasat/
Hun foreign minister Szijarto wants Russian athletes to be allowed to participate in the Paris olympics!
https://dailynewshungary.com/szijjarto-russia-the-olympics/
Now I wonder what other countries will think of this idea.
I doubt if anybody outside the Kremlin will take note of that.
Szijarto also wants Serbia to join the EU – but Kosovo shouldn’t exist in his opinion.
A sure way to tell everybody else in the EU:
We are Putin’s best friend!
They are also sending signals of political ambitions
for a revival of pre-Ttrianon grandeur, which probably count more than supporting Russia.
When pro-Putin Hungary supports Serbia’s accession to the EU, you get the confirmation Serbia should NEVER join the union.