Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

A public service announcement

While you were Googling duck-and-cover instructions from the 1950s and 60s on Tuesday, JD Vance was in Budapest campaigning for the reelection of Hungary’s far-right nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orbán. Orbán is flagging in the polls ahead of Sunday’s election.

Axios declares:

Viktor Orbán is the cornerstone of President Trump’s vision for Europe. The pro-Kremlin, anti-EU strongman has spent 16 years building a template for Christian nationalist rule now embraced by the American right.

Orbán has been the toast of CPAC, a Tucker Carlson crush, and self-styled defender of western civilization against the predations of wokeness and race mixing. Vance praised Orbán, saying, “The president loves you, and so do I, because you’re such an important part of what has made Europe strong and prosperous.” Etc., etc.

About that “strong and prosperous.”

Richard Stengel, former Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy under President Obama, commented on Hungary Tuesday during an appearance on “Deadline: White House.” Speaking as a former editor (Time), Stengel recommended that every article on Hungary come with an advisory box. It would read:

Hungary the poorest country in the EU

Hungary is the most corrupt country in the EU

Hungary is a country the size of Pennsylvania but it’s four times as poor as Pennsylvania

Italy is 10 times richer than Hungary

Bookmark that.

“Hungary is an example of failure,” Stengel emphasized, an example of state capture.

So just what is it that white, Christian nationalists find attractive about Hungary? Orbán is loudly and proudly anti-immigrant. Here’s a quote (2022):

“We [Hungarians] are not a mixed race … and we do not want to become a mixed race,” said Orbán on Saturday. He added that countries where European and non-Europeans mingle were “no longer nations”.

That makes Orbán a MAGA darling, and Hungary a model for what MAGAs want for the U.S.

The Cato Institute:

Some US conservatives see Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Hungary as a model for America’s future. In reality, Orbán’s crude majoritarianism has undermined the rule of law and media freedom in Hungary to take control of the economy and funnel resources to loyal oligarchs. The dismantling of institutional constraints on state power has gone further than in other modern democracies, and the results have consistently disappointed, even in areas where the government claims achievements such as strengthening the economy or increasing fertility rates. Far from being a model, Orbán’s Hungary is a cautionary tale of what results from an unrestrained executive with strongly centralized power, crony capitalism, and the systematic dismantling of the rule of law.

Again, Orbán is a MAGA darling. Like Dear Leader.

Not that perspicacity is their strong suit, but MAGAs had best be careful what they wish for.

I’m reminded of the family of conservative Christians that moved from Houston to Russia because they believed their three daughters “were being brainwashed by public school and mainstream media to support LGBTQ rights” and because “American culture in general no longer offered white people the same opportunities as other races.” Russia would be their non-woke, white-Christian paradise. Another family from Abilene emigrated for the same reasons, except with sons. Life in Russia was not their white-Christian paradise either.

Here’s a lovely piece about Aaron Rupar, the man who provides the clips that I rely upon to document the atrocities I share with you every day. He has a great eye for what’s important and has made it possible to follow the story of this administration on video.

The psychological demands of Aaron Rupar’s work are immense. He counts himself lucky to have remained more or less healthy after a decade in his job.

“I certainly wouldn’t say that I’m like a model of mental health,” says the father-of-two from Minnesota. “But for the most part, especially considering what I do and how much time I spend doing it, I think I’ve been able to emerge relatively unscathed.”

Rupar works from his spare room in his Minneapolis house. His job is to watch President Trump. All day, every day.

I hear that…

And good on Aaron for this:

“It’s really difficult to cover him in a way that conveys how unhinged he is,” says Rupar. “That’s kind of how people are trained to do political journalism. It’s like, ‘OK, what did he say that was newsworthy, what’s new?’ So you kind of pick up those things and convey them to your audience. But in reality, when you actually watch his rallies, you see that they’re full of hatred, he’s lying constantly, and a lot of it is incoherent.”

Yep, yep, yep. You can’t know just how unhinged and outrageous this whole thing is without paying very close attention to Trump and it’s very hard to keep your humanity sometimes. But Aaron remains as sincere, genuine and authentic as he’s always been, a true mensch. I don’t know that I could have continued to do this if he wasn’t performing this valuable service.

It would be a shame not to use it:

Kristi Noem’s controversial $70 milion luxury jet will remain under the Trump administration’s purview as First Lady Melania Trump will be among those who get to use it.

Some of the President’s Cabinet secretaries will also be allowed to use the aircraft, which was originally purchased to help with Trump’s mass deportation agenda, The Wall Street Journal reported. 

The jet was bought by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and featured a bedroom, showers, a kitchen, four large flat-screen TVs and even a bar, according to images obtained by NBC News in February.

Just more outrageous taxpayer rip-offs by the administration that was going to drain the swamp — apparently so they could build personal McMansions on the silt.

If Democrats manage to take back full power in 2028, this should be among the first things they sell off, right after they demolish the ballroom and the arch. The symbolism is important even if the money is a drop in the bucket in the big scheme of things. They should start running on this right now.

Anti-corruption is going to be an extremely important issue over the next few cycles.

What a shock:

President Javier Milei of Argentina promoted a cryptocurrency last year that quickly skyrocketed in value then cratered just as fast, costing investors millions of dollars and setting off a scandal and an investigation.

Mr. Milei said he was simply highlighting a private venture and had no connection to the digital coin called $Libra. New evidence is now raising questions about his assertion. Phone logs from a federal investigation by Argentine prosecutors into the coin’s collapse show seven phone calls between Mr. Milei and one of the entrepreneurs behind the cryptocurrency on the night in 2025 when Mr. Milei posted about $Libra on X.

The contents of the calls, which took place before and after Mr. Milei’s post, are not known.But the phone logs — which were obtained by The New York Times and first reported by a local cable news channel, C5N — suggest a greater degree of communication between Mr. Milei and the entrepreneurs who launched the token than what the president has publicly acknowledged. Newly uncovered messages also suggest Mr. Milei received regular payments from one of the entrepreneurs while he was a congressman.

Of course he’s corrupt. Why would anyone think otherwise? He’s a member of the global right wing and affiliated with Donald Trump.

The crypto scams are going to be one of the biggest stories of this period. I don’t know how long it’s going to take to completely unravel it but in the end we will find that these criminals stole billions from people who were clueless about what they were getting into. It’s a sad comment on our modern culture that people can’t see through these scams but far too many are dazzled by hucksters who promise wealth and vengeance and they’re going to end up with neither.

If you work for the federal government anyway. (And probably everyone else eventually.)

A brief notice from the Office of Personnel Management could dramatically change which personally identifiable medical information the agency obtains, giving it the power to see prescriptions employees had filled or what treatment they sought from doctors. The regulation would require 65 insurance companies that cover more than 8 million Americans — including federal workers, retired members of Congress, mail carriers, and their immediate family members — to provide monthly reports to OPM with identifiable health data on their members.

The proposal is prompting unease from insurers as well as health policy and legal experts, who are concerned about the legality of OPM acquiring such a sweeping database of sensitive health information, and the agency’s ability to safeguard it.

[…]

The ask comes a year into a Republican administration that has been defined by haphazard mass layoffs and firings of thousands of federal workers, including dozens who say they were targeted in acts of political retaliation or for not embracing the White House’s agenda. Under President Donald Trump, the government has also routinely tested the legal bounds of sharing sensitive and personally identifiable tax or health information across government agencies in its efforts to carry out mass immigration arrests or pursue identify fraud.

“You can anticipate a scenario where this information on 8 million Americans is now in the hands of OPM and there’s a real concern of how they use it,” said Michael Martinez, senior counsel at Democracy Forward, an advocacy organization that filed a public comment opposing OPM’s proposal in February. Martinez previously worked at OPM.

There is simply no doubt that they will misuse the data. That’s what they do.

The last I heard, HIPAA precludes anyone from sharing this information but we know that the law doesn’t apply to the Trump administration so never mind.

Hopefully, the courts will stop this too. But you never know.

The Wall St. Journal (gift link) takes a look at the state of America’s alliances in the wake of this latest trainwreck. If it was bad before it’s terrible today:

Crowning a year of disputes with the Trump administration over trade tariffs, support for Ukraine and the future of Greenland, the Iran war has placed America’s friends in Europe, Asia and the Middle East in front of an uneasy dilemma.

Their most important ally is acting in ways that they see as erratic and that have already caused hardship and uncertainty. The war has sapped their economies and even bigger shocks loom if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, deepening the worldwide energy crisis.

Many—on both sides of the Atlantic—wonder if they are even allies anymore. Angered by the refusal of European nations to join the war alongside the U.S. and Israel, President Trump has called European countries cowards, and threatened to withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization altogether.

“The United States is unpredictable,” said Roderich Kiesewetter, a lawmaker from Germany’s ruling party, echoing a widespread sentiment in Europe. “It’s not a reliable partner anymore for the Western world.”

The threats to take Greenland were the tipping point:

“This will never be forgotten,” said retired French Lt. Gen. Michel Yakovleff. “Psychologically, Trump talking about taking Greenland was the equivalent of a father talking, jokingly, of raping one of his daughters. Obviously, it’s a new world in the family after that.”

Well.

The problem is that until they can all arm up and retool, the US is still the only option:

“If you insult your allies and push them to the brink in every negotiation, if you present your ugliest face to the world, then this consent will evaporate,” Fullilove said. “But what is the alternative to the U.S.-led alliance system? The U.S. is the only country that can project power anywhere on Earth. Who else will lead the West, if not Washington?”

This Catch-22 is acutely felt by U.S. partners and allies in the Persian Gulf. With their cities subjected to daily Iranian missile and drone barrages, the Gulf states are most affected by the Iranian retaliation for a war that they didn’t start and whose course they cannot control.

We’ve closely watched the destruction of the NATO alliance for the past year but the big strain on the relationship with the Gulf states is more recent:

Gulf officials have grown frustrated with Trump—who, among other undiplomatic moves, publicly insulted Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman by saying last month, at a Saudi-sponsored investment conference, that the kingdom’s de-facto ruler “didn’t think he’d be kissing my ass.” Yet, these Gulf states also know that only Washington can provide them with crucial weapons, particularly air defenses, and offer protection from future Iranian attempts to dominate the region. 

One can only assume that Trump’s TACO yesterday has caused even more consternation. Reportedly, Saudi Arabia was begging Trump to continue the war. Today, they’re still being targeted by Iran while Trump is talking about doing a deal to split the “fees” Iran is going to be charging to use the Strait of Hormuz.

Meanwhile, he’s blown up the Asian alliances as well:

South Korea, facing a threat from North Korea and an emboldened China, watched with dismay as the U.S. redeployed vital air-defense resources to the Middle East last month. “The action that the U.S. is engaged in in Iran not only reveals the U.S. as a rogue actor whose political values at home and internationally are no longer in accordance with South Korea’s professed values, but also one whose actions will have huge economic consequences,” said Mason Richey, a professor of international politics at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul. “Yet, South Korea also needs to stay on the right side of the Trump administration for its own security purposes.”

[…]

At Monday’s news conference, Trump touted his good relationship with North Korea’s leader as he complained about South Korea’s refusal to join the war on Iran, and said that he still wants Greenland.

He’s nuts.

“Everyone is confused. Nobody can understand what America actually is today. It seems governed by some kind of mad emperor who keeps saying whatever comes to his mind, something we haven’t witnessed since Caligula or Nero,” said Carlo Calenda, an Italian senator and former economic development minister. “The one thing the Europeans have understood is that we are dealing with a bully. You can give him everything he wants, you can pretend you don’t hear his insults, but he will keep trying to bully us, and so at a certain point we must stop him.”

If only the Republican Party would have such an epiphany we might be able to save our country. I’m not holding my breath.

Iran’s terms:

The consequences by John Gray

Donald Trump’s self-described “little excursion” in Iran has proved to be a march to disaster. His “major combat operation” has shifted from aiming to block Iran achieving a nuclear capability that was supposedly “obliterated” last June to unblocking the Strait of Hormuz and restoring the situation that existed before the operation began. Whatever the objective may be, the pre-war status quo is irretrievable.

Trump cannot declare victory and walk away without surrendering the vital shipping conduit to Iran. With its proven capacity to wreak havoc on the world economy, a bombed-out military-theocratic dictatorship has begun the final unravelling of US imperial power.

In the Middle East, the war has undercut the financial foundations of US hegemony. However the war ends, the result will be the re-emergence of Iran as a major power. As the arbiter of passage through Hormuz, Iran has become the deciding force in the global oil economy. If Trump opts to “finish the job” and launches a ground operation, the US will be dragged into a debacle larger than Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq combined.

While Nato may linger on in name, the transatlantic alliance is operationally defunct. America is returning to its pre-1914 trajectory as a civilisation separate from Europe. In the UK, the default position is to wait out the storm until sanity returns to Washington.

Why Putin or Xi Jinping should exhibit similar patience is not explained. Could there be a better time for them to act? Ramping up hybrid warfare in under-defended Europe will give Putin leverage in any peace deal in Ukraine. With Trump having shifted military assets from the Asia-Pacific to the Middle East and running down munitions, Xi may be able to absorb Taiwan without firing a shot.

This is not simply a case of the lessons of history being ignored. Trump’s war looks more like an example of what Sigmund Freud described as repetition compulsion – an unconscious process in which the mind acts out what it cannot properly remember. A creature of the moment as he may be, Trump seems driven by an impulse to reimagine the past and reassert American – and his own – greatness. When an infantile fantasy of omnipotence comes up against unyielding realities, the response is inchoate rage.

Psychopathology may be more illuminating than geopolitics at this point. In a more profound sense than is commonly recognised, Donald Trump does not know what he is doing.

His little excursion is a point of no return in America’s retreat as a global power.

Psychopathology?

Meanwhile on Cult TV:

Ingraham: It looks like Trump ultimately hits the home run here, takes it to the brink. Iran blinks.

Towery: When will the Democrats and some Republicans ever learn that the rhetoric he uses is done for a reason. And it works pic.twitter.com/a8xFv07W0B

— Acyn (@Acyn) April 7, 2026

Devious “defenders” of election integrity

JV Last summarized last night’s Iran debacle in a Bulwark livestream: “This entire thing was avoidable and predictable. Donald Trump made America walk into the diner to eat the shit sandwich.”

Republicans are on track for more at the polls this fall. They ate another last night in Wisconsin (Politico):

In Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election, the Democratic-backed candidate sailed to a nearly 20-point landslide victory Tuesday in a battleground Trump carried less than two years ago. Meanwhile, a Georgia Democrat slashed Trump’s margin of victory by two thirds in the state’s reddest district despite losing the election — the most significant overperformance the party has seen across all seven House special elections so far this cycle.

Meaning Democrat Shawn Harris will not replace Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene in the U.S. House. But political winds are not blowing in Republicans’ favor. Judge Chris Taylor, a Wisconsin liberal, won a seat on the state Supreme Court by 20 points over her Republican rival. Democrats will hold a 5-to-2 majority on the Wisconsin high court once she’s sworn in.

“It’s a wow moment in Wisconsin politics,” said former Republican strategist Brandon Scholz, who left the party in 2021. “Republicans ought to be sitting down tonight and going, ‘Okay, we just screwed up another race. What are we going to do in November?’”

Lose. And lose badly. Depending on what the lunatic in the Oval Office does between now and then to sabotage fall elections.

Republicans Politico quotes dismissed the losses as not indicative of what happens in November.

“Everyone involved should be doxxed, tarred and feathered and run out of Wisconsin politics,” the strategist said while dismissing the idea that the race result matters ahead of November.

“The electorate is so different now. GOP voters don’t show up for spring [elections] like they used to,” they said.

[…]

“Democrats threw everything they had at this race,” said Georgia Republican Party chair Josh McKoon. “They made this the Super Bowl and they lost.”

Anyway, Georgia Republicans have tricks up their sleeves for November. One county chair called last night seeking someone in North Carolina with experience running elections with hand-marked paper ballots. Georgia Republicans are still worked up over Dominion, Venezuela, pillow guy, Sydney Powell, and 11,780 votes, etc. Democracy Docket explained on April 3 what they mean to do about it:

Georgia election officials have less than three months to convert the state’s entire voting system from touchscreen machines to paper ballots, after the state Senate failed to vote Friday on legislation that would have delayed the conversion until 2028. 

[…]

Georgia’s current touchscreen system generates QR codes for ballot counting. But in 2024 GOP state lawmakers voted to sunset these machines by July 1 of this year, making it illegal to use them beyond that. Last week, the state Senate passed a bill to change over to a completely hand-marked ballot system. 

However, local election officials urged lawmakers to delay that switch until 2028 so that they would have time to put the new system in place, which would include pre-printing millions of ballots and re-training election workers.

Georgia state senators did not listen:

The state House passed a bipartisan bill this morning that would’ve allowed for that two-year grace period. But the Senate – led by Lt. Gov. Burt Jones (R), who is running for the GOP nomination for governor – declined to bring it forward for a vote Friday, the final day of this year’s legislative session. 

Now comes the scramble. And likely court challenges. Georgia’s given boards of elections no time or funds to buy, validate/certify, train staff and implement a replacement hand-market ballot system before the fall. Chaos is legislated in:

Election officials also warn that the law’s new reporting requirements will cause delays in ballot counting and in delivering timely results. Those problems often trigger chaos, controversy and conspiracy theories, as seen in the fallout over Fulton County’s 2020 election ballot count, which is still being probed today. 

North Carolina Republicans are not slackers on the chaos (“election integrity”) front, as Asheville Watchdog’s Tom Fiedler explains this morning.

HB 127, “camouflaged under the title ‘Voter Registration Drive Form’, ” means to prohibit voter registration form handling by anyone except county elections officials or the Division of Motor Vehicles. Fiedler explains, “Anybody else who provides voter-registration forms may as well be trafficking in illicit drugs as they face criminal prosecution.”

That would be un-American enterprises such as “the League of Women Voters and Common Cause, and such civil-rights groups as the A. Philip Randolph Institute and the youth-oriented Rock the Vote.” Fielder explains:

Jennifer Rubin, president of the North Carolina League of Voters, told an NCNews reporter that civic organizations like hers “are all for election security and for holding elections with integrity.” But what the Republicans are doing is “throwing up roadblocks to limit voting.

“It’s like a game of whack-a-mole,” Rubin said. “One thing happens and another pops up just to discourage people from voting.”

Conveniently, Republicans are running the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Sarah Stevens, for state Supreme Court against incumbent Democrat Anita Earls. With the six-month effort by Republican Judge Jefferson Griffin to steal the 2024 election he lost to Justice Allison Riggs fresh in voters’ minds — Earls called the attempt “a bloodless coup” — we’ll expect Stevens to have her face rubbed in her attempt to quash voter registration every week between now and November.

Watch this space and watch Georgia’s election struggles.

And what about those unreleased Epstein files?

You can stop ducking and covering for now. Politico’s landing page this morning announces “World exhales — a little — as US, Iran agree to ceasefire.” It’s a two-week ceasefire in the illegal war Donald Trump threatened on Sunday to turn into civilizational genocide. Two weeks? That’s enough time to roll out the “terrific,” “phenomenal” and “fantastic” new health care plan to replace the Affordable Care Act he’s been promising in two weeks since taking office in January 2017.

It’s also enough time for Trump’s accelerating mental decline to worsen. Or for him to attack Cuba.

The New York Times summarizes the latest:

The United States and Iran announced a two-week cease-fire and plans to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday evening, hours before a deadline set by President Trump, who had threatened to destroy Iran’s “whole civilization” unless it allowed free transit through the vital waterway.

The agreement, brokered by Pakistan, was hailed as a victory by both sides. Mr. Trump said a 10-point plan from Iran was a “workable basis on which to negotiate” a lasting end to the war, after demanding Tehran’s “unconditional surrender” for weeks. Iranian officials were triumphant, with Mohammad Reza Aref, the country’s first vice president, saying on social media that “the era of Iran” had begun after Trump failed to destroy the Islamic Republic’s government. Iran also said the Strait of Hormuz would remain open while negotiations took place.

As for Europeans giving the United States of Trump serious side-eye, Politico quotes an unnamed official who referenced Trump Always Chickens Out:

“Better TACO Tuesday than World War III,” said one European official, nodding to Trump backing off his threats to wipe out Iran’s civilization if it didn’t open the Strait of Hormuz. The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, hoped the pause could allow for an eventual negotiated end to the war.

It’s a carnival of chaos this morning, and too much to summarize.

Secretary of WAR! Pete Hegseth just completed a press conference focused heavily on how many bombs the U.S. dropped and on a partial list of targets hit with no clearer definition of U.S. strategic aims:

“You’re trying to define victory by how many people you killed,” said Vali Nasr, an Iranian expert at Johns Hopkins University. “Its [sic] like a doctor who says, ‘I have a really sharp scalpel.’”

Why are we bombing Iran exactly? We still don’t know. But “Hegseth just called President Trump ‘a president of peace.’”

The question remains: What will Trump do when in the interim demands renew for a full release of the Epstein files? He’ll need another flashy distraction.

Also, “Gas prices could take months to fall significantly,” reports The Washington Post. So plan now for that $5/gallon staycation.

No need to be concerned about any conflicts of interest. The Trump family is as honest as the day is long:

A drone maker backed by President Donald Trump’s two oldest sons is trying to sell to Gulf countries while they are under attack by Iran and dependent on the U.S. military led by their father.

The sales drive by Florida-based Powerus – which announced a deal last month to bring aboard Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. – positions the company to potentially benefit from a war that their father began.

“These countries are under enormous pressure to buy from the sons of the president so he will do what they want,” said Richard Painter, a former chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush. “This is going to be the first family of a president to make a lot of money off war — a war he didn’t get the consent of Congress for.”

[…]

The Trump brothers’ deal with Powerus could give them sizable equity stakes. Their father, as commander in chief, launched the strikes with Israel against Iran over a month ago that began the war, the impetus for why these Gulf countries now need protection.

The Trump brothers are known experts in the field of drone warfare so it’s perfectly understandable that they would be involved with this company. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that their father has started a war for no reason that will boost the value of this company tremendously.

We can take heart that at least it isn’t as corrupt as the Biden Crime Family’s reign of terror: