“On Sunday night, the streets of Budapest were filled. Tens of thousands of Hungarians poured into the streets along the Danube River, singing folk songs and waving flags celebrating the end of Viktor Orbán’s rule. A young man named Mark Szekeres, his face painted with the colors of the Hungarian flag, told CBC News: ‘This election was about a clash of civilizations. Either you belong in a Western-type democracy or an Eastern-type dictatorship.’ For 16 years, Orbán controlled the country as the classic strongman. Orbán’s electoral defeat was sound—so much so that he conceded defeat before all the votes were counted. Péter Magyar’s Tisza Party captured more than 53% of the vote and approximately 136 of 199 parliamentary seats, a supermajority decisive enough to undo the constitution and other laws that Orbán rewrote. The turnout alone was a verdict: nearly 80% of all eligible voters.” (04/16/26)
“Japan, like much of Asia, which is highly reliant on Middle East oil and gas, announced Wednesday that it will provide $10 billion to many of its regional trade partners to find new supplies during the Strait of Hormuz crisis. As Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae put it, Asian countries ‘are mutually dependent’. Much of that money will go to Southeast Asia, where nations have reacted to the crisis by trying to revive a long-standing regional agreement to aid each other during a petroleum emergency. ‘What this crisis has confirmed is a structural truth: no single country in Asia can insulate itself from supply chain shocks of this scale by acting alone,’ said Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.” (04/15/26)
“In the aftermath of last week’s big meeting of the Democratic National Committee in New Orleans, supporters of the US-Israel alliance have been quite content. ‘We’re pleased that the DNC Resolutions Committee rejected a set of divisive, anti-Israel resolutions,’ the president of Democratic Majority for Israel said. The CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, a former national security advisor to Kamala Harris, expressed gratitude to the DNC’s leadership. Why did pro-Israel groups voice so much pleasure and praise—not only for the sidelining of pro-human-rights resolutions but also for the process that sidelined them? The answer has to do with the DNC’s mechanism that thwarted changes in positions on Israel. A panel named the Middle East Working Group gummed up all efforts to align the DNC with the views of most Democratic voters, even while supposedly hard at work.” (04/16/26)
“Sen. Chuck Schumer faced fresh calls to step aside as the Senate Democratic leader on Wednesday after he broke with the overwhelming majority of his caucus and voted against a pair of resolutions aimed at preventing the Trump administration from selling more US bombs and bulldozers to Israel. ‘Mr. Schumer, you are out of touch with the base of this party, and with your own caucus,’ said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), who first called on Schumer to resign as Democratic leader last year, in a short video posted to social media following Wednesday’s votes. ‘Step aside!’ The two resolutions, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), called for halting the sale of around $450 million worth of bulldozers, 1,000-pound bombs, and related military equipment to the Israeli government, which has repeatedly used American weaponry to commit war crimes in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories, Lebanon, and Syria.” (04/16/26)
“Secretary of War [sic] Pete Hegseth ripped the media Thursday, likening them to Pharisees in the Bible who ‘were only there to explain away the goodness in pursuit of their agenda’. ‘A note to the press, to the press corps, to the American media, as I just can’t help but notice the endless stream of garbage, the relentlessly negative coverage, you cannot resist peddling, despite the historic and important success of this effort and the success of our troops,’ Hegseth said during a press briefing on the war with Iran, at the Pentagon. … He went on to say that it was difficult to ‘figure out what side’ some of the press was on. ‘It’s incredibly unpatriotic,’ he said.” (04/16/26)
“Europe has ‘maybe six weeks or so’ of remaining jet fuel supplies, the head of the International Energy Agency said Thursday in a wide-ranging interview, warning of possible flight cancellations ‘soon’ if oil supplies remain blocked by the Iran war. IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol painted a sobering picture of the global repercussions of what he called ‘the largest energy crisis we have ever faced,’ stemming from the pinch-off of oil, gas and other vital supplies through the Strait of Hormuz. ‘In the past there was a group called ‘Dire Straits.’ It’s a dire strait now, and it is going to have major implications for the global economy. And the longer it goes, the worse it will be for the economic growth and inflation around the world,’ he told The Associated Press.” (04/16/26)
“The prognosis of the Iran War is now so couched in politics and so warped by the American Left that the public has grown tired and wants it all to go away. But in truth, the situation is so fluid that any accurate prediction is impossible. Yet there is good reason to believe in an eventual outcome quite favorable to the U.S. and one far better than the status quo ante bellum. Prior to President Donald Trump’s most recent announcement that the United States would first blockade and then reopen and control traffic through the Strait, only a few ships were going through, mostly those aligned with Iran, opposed to the U.S., or neutral. Thus, the Strait was disrupted to a far greater degree than during Iran’s earlier efforts at closure during the ‘Tanker War’ phase of the Iran-Iraq War, as well as its chronic harassment of shipping in 2018-19. And now?” (04/16/26)
“Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas issued a blistering critique of modern-day progressivism in a rare public speech on Wednesday, describing the modern political philosophy as a threat to America’s founding principles. Speaking to a packed auditorium of students and faculty at the University of Texas at Austin to mark the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas, the Supreme Court’s longest-serving justice, urged the nation to revisit the philosophical foundations of U.S. governance.” [editor’s note: I guess “progressives” aren’t buying him enough new RVs, buying enough houses from him and letting his relatives live there rent-free, etc. – TLK] (04/16/26)
“Today, we’ll talk about jet fuel, the good news/bad news situation for China, and more. For the time being, yes. The U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is starting to actually work, though the Iranian fuel kept in floating storage or already on the ocean is unaffected. Of course, the products a blockade does prevent from safe passage only deepens the damage to the global economy. There has been talk of more talks between the U.S. and Iran, but nothing finalized. I spent Wednesday in LAX and O’Hare Airport in Chicago, and things looked relatively normal. The (actually illegal) payments to TSA workers, despite lapsed appropriations to the Department of Homeland Security, meant that metal detectors were running full-speed, and my flight was full.” (04/16/26)
“A federal judge who halted construction of President Donald Trump’s $400 million White House ballroom clarified on Thursday that the administration can proceed with below-ground construction of a bunker and other ‘national security facilities’ at the site. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington issued his latest ruling in a lawsuit over the ballroom project several days after an appeals court instructed him to reconsider the possible national security implications of stopping construction. Government lawyers had argued that the project includes critical security features to guard against a range of possible threats, such as drones, ballistic missiles and biohazards. Leon had barred work from proceeding without congressional approval, but his March 31 order suspended enforcement of that order for two weeks. The appeals court extended that stay until Friday, but Leon stayed his latest decision for another week, which gives the administration more time to seek Supreme Court review.” (04/16/26)
