Secretary Michael R. Pompeo’s Remarks to the Press (from the official transcript) 04/07/2020 02:34 PM ED Washington, D.C. QUESTION: How concerned are you about leaders using coronavirus to weaken democracies in their countries? There is this specific example of Hungary, which the State Department has commented on. Are you seeing that elsewhere, and what tools does the U.S. Government have […]
The party state’s two-thirds majority in parliament meant that with 138 voting for and just 53 against, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has secured the right to rule by decree for an unlimited period of time, and to unilaterally suspend existing laws, ostensibly in an effort to better address the COVID-19 pandemic in Hungary. On Monday, the number of Hungarians confirmed […]
On September 1, 2019 Zsolt Demeter, Presbiter of the Hungarian Reformed Church in America published a three-page letter attacking Pastor András Debreczeni of the First Hungarian Reformed Church in Phoenix, AZ. Demeter called Debreczeni a liar and cheater who illegally taped conversations and demanded his removal. Demeter has threatened with lawsuits and made it clear that he had the backing […]
Sir Roger Scruton does not mince words. In a 2017 Hungary Today interview Scruton attacked President Trump’s intelligence: “He doesn’t have any thoughts that are longer than 140 characters.” (Read here) In another interview he talked disparagingly about the Chinese people and declared that they were “robots” and “each Chinese person is a replica of the next one and that […]
The International Democrat Union (IDU) is an alliance of right wing political parties, headquartered in Munich, Germany and currently chaired by Stephen Harper, the former Prime Minister of Canada. Mr. Harper and his friend, Hungarian-born Canadian film producer, Robert Lantos travelled to Hungary to spend the August 20th National Holiday with far-right authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Lord Ashcroft, conservative […]
On August 15th the PBS NewsHour interviewed Danny Ayalon, former Israeli ambassador to the US, during a piece on Israel barring two U.S. congresswomen, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, both Muslims. Israel claims that Reps. Omar and Tlaib are anti-Semitic. The reporter pointed out that Israel has welcomed politicians in the past who have used anti-Semitic […]
Every year on July 4 the US Embassy in Budapest has a garden party with a couple of dozen invited Hungarian guests to celebrate Independence Day. This has become a decade-long tradition. It seems that Ambassador Cornstein likes to give big parties, I mean giant parties. On July 9 he invited 800 guests (yes, eight hundred) to a sit down […]
On January 24, 2017, Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) was awarded the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit by Hungary. The award was presented in Washington D.C. with great fanfare by Orbán loyalist Ambassador Réka Szemerkényi and Kaptur expressed her support for the Budapest government. Hungarian taxpayer’s money was not spared. The award ceremony was preceded by a piano concert […]
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán last sat next to an American president in the Oval Office 21 years ago, in 1998. At the time, the 35 year old Mr. Orbán, serving his first four year term at the helm of the Hungarian government, sat in the company of President Bill Clinton. Mr. Orbán had then just completed his transformation from an […]
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s voice is the only heard in Hungary today and his rhetoric is firmly anti–Islamist. At the same time, Mr. Orbán maintains close and friendly relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iran is a theocracy. Islam is an inseparable part of the political structure and the government is based on sharia or Islamic law. Iran is […]
