It began as a Facebook post by a Hawaii grandmother the day after Hillary Clinton’s loss in November and blossomed into a worldwide protest movement against Donald Trump. The largest demonstration took place in Washington DC, where according to estimates well over half a million people marched. In California, my home state, about 400 thousand marched in Los Angeles, 100 […]
Hungary’s Népszava daily newspaper has been trying, in vain, to get answers to its questions about how the Jobbik party is spending public funds at its disposal, and precisely what services are being rendered by a company that seems to be uncomfortably close to the party leadership and is the recipient of these funds. An organization called Iránytű Intézet (Compass […]
The executive of the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) unanimously nominated László Botka to lead the party into the 2018 national elections, likely to be held next April. Forty-three year old Mr. Botka, the popular and long-time mayor of Szeged who beat his Fidesz rival by an impressive 22% landslide victory in the 2014 municipal elections, has come across as more […]
Last year Donald Trump gave an interview to The Washington Post editorial board. He said: “NATO is costing us a fortune, and yes, we’re protecting Europe, but we’re spending a lot of money. Number one, I think the distribution of costs has to be changed.” Later he told the New York Times: “NATO is unfair, economically, to us, to the […]
Far-right media personalities associated with Fidesz, including a founding member of the governing party, Zsolt Bayer, have plans to celebrate President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Friday night in Budapest’s Szabadság tér, or Freedom Square in English. The outdoor public event will be held in the area between the Ronald Reagan statue and the Soviet monument–the latter was once much-maligned on […]
A group of Hungarians in their twenties and thirties called Momentum Mozgalom (Momentum Movement), which sees itself entering the political arena ahead of the 2018 national elections, has received the go-ahead from both the Budapest Election Committee and the Supreme Court of Hungary for a proposed referendum on withdrawing the Hungarian bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. Momentum must […]
On Monday morning, residents of Dunaújváros, an industrial town of 48,000 residents located 70 km south of Budapest, once named after Joseph Stalin, are planning to hold a protest in front of the offices of the privately-held company that provides heating services and potable water to locals. The firm in question, the Water, Sewer and Heat Supplier of Dunaújváros, abbreviated […]
I generally don’t give credit to Hungary’s tabloid news but Ms. Kata Sarka’s story deserves attention. She is a Hungarian beauty queen and celebrity who is married to (separated from?) Mr. Péter Hajdú, a Hungarian TV-talk-show host. Their on-and-off romance is part of Hungary’s tabloid world. She gave a playful “Carpool Karaoke” style interview in May 2016, well before the […]
Hungarian politicians often visit Canada and the Unites States. Lately, serious questions have been raised about their activities: Do these politicians represent a security risk? Thirty-nine year-old Mr. Márton Gyöngyösi is an MP representing Jobbik, Hungary’s neo-Nazi party, in the county’s Parliament. He is pro-Iranian and his party does not hide its contacts with Iranians. It is also long suspected […]
Szilárd Németh, the Vice President of Fidesz, named Transparency International, the Helsinki Committee and the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (TASZ) as the three organizations that the Orbán government would “clean out of here” and confirmed that it would do so, “using any methods available.” Specifically, Mr. Németh–the government’s top bully–declared: “The pseudo-NGOs of the Soros Empire are supported in order […]
