Taking Heart From Hungary to Protect US Elections

Source: Brennan Center for Justice
by Michael Waldman

“This week, autocrat Viktor Orbán conceded defeat in Hungary’s general election. It was a landslide victory for Péter Magyar, and for democracy worldwide. Over the course of 16 years, Orbán worked to dismantle and undermine democratic institutions. He took control of most news outlets. He rewrote election rules. He replaced judges with loyalists. His government faced numerous corruption scandals, including one surrounding a presidential pardon. He was also a fan favorite of the Trump administration. Our vice president campaigned for him. What are the implications of his defeat for democracy in the United States? To be sure, midterm elections often rebuke the party in power, and it’s hard to predict whether this election augurs any November results. But just as Brexit presaged Trump in 2016, worldwide trends are at play.” (04/15/26)

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/people-speak-hungary-and-home

FL: Doctor faces manslaughter charge for allegedly removing wrong organ during surgery

Source: WESH 2 News

“A grand jury indicted a Florida doctor on a manslaughter charge for allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen during a 2024 surgery. The prosecutor for the First Judicial Circuit on Monday announced the charge of second-degree manslaughter against Dr. Thomas Shaknovsky. Prosecutors said that during an Aug. 21, 2024, surgery, which was scheduled to be a laparoscopic splenectomy, Shaknovsky removed the victim’s liver instead of his spleen. That resulted in ‘catastrophic blood loss and the patient’s death on the operating table,’ law enforcement officials wrote in a press release. The patient was a 70-year-old man from Muscle Shoals, Alabama. … Florida suspended Shaknovsky’s medical license after the surgery. Records show he voluntarily surrendered his medical license in Alabama after regulators moved to revoke his license.” (04/15/26)

https://www.wesh.com/article/florida-doctor-manslaughter-removing-wrong-organ/71026650

COVID King (and Queen) Remembered

Source: Independent Institute
by K Lloyd Billingsley

“From the nation’s capital to coastal villages in California, protesters cry ‘no kings!’ Similar protests did not break out while the nation was under rule by the closest thing to a monarch since King George. When the COVID virus showed up in 2020, the people found themselves taking orders from Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since 1984. Dr. Fauci ordered massive lockdowns of schools and workplaces, causing vast suffering and loss for millions of Americans.” (04/15/26)

https://www.independent.org/article/2026/04/15/covid-king-and-queen-remembered/

Abundance Pragmatism Fails

Source: Law & LIberty
by Richard M |Reinsch II

“The Abundance movement makes a pragmatic case for more essential goods and services and isn’t really concerned with how this supply is incentivized or generated. It forsakes what advocates regard as tired philosophical debates about limited government, markets, and freedom. Of course, to argue in such a way is to choose ends that justify a variety of human actions. Supply-side progressivism can take many different courses.” (04/16/26)

https://lawliberty.org/forum/abundance-pragmatism-fails/

From Iran to the fake Jesus image, Trump facing growing backlash for his inflammatory rhetoric

Source: Fox News
by Howard Kurtz

“Donald Trump is nothing if not impulsive – and there’s often a method to his seeming madness. At times that means going way over the line – consciously, deliberately – and at others it’s just rash. Whether he’s dealing with Iran, the Epstein files, mass deportation or the leader of the Catholic Church, the president busts through the usual guardrails of decency and compassion. I know this is often intentional, because the president has acknowledged it to me. Ripping others may bring him negative publicity, but Trump doesn’t mind that if it gets the pundits and the public chattering about the issue he wants driving the media agenda. Trump posting a user’s AI image of himself as Jesus Christ, healing a patient with glowing hands – and adding a demon in the background – was such a fiasco that he deleted it 12 hours later, which he almost never does.” (04/15/26)

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/iran-fake-jesus-image-trump-facing-growing-backlash-inflammatory-rhetoric