Charlie Stross22h ago

Holy shit.

Hungary’s New Leader Reveals Viktor Orbán Was Paying CPAC

Magyar noted that his government will be investigating Orbán’s expenditures, and will no longer finance CPAC or other right-wing institutions abroad.

https://newrepublic.com/post/209035/hungary-prime-minister-victor-orban-paying-cpac

Hungary’s New Leader Reveals Viktor Orbán Was Paying CPAC

Péter Magyar called the payments a “crime” and said his government would stop the funds.

The New Republic
Show threadmilitant_dilettante10h ago
@cstross a person, whose Telegram channel I'm reading since 2022, has this take: every known (far-)right politician contemporary to us is a scam, a fraud, a con artist, a grifter, and a thief. This heuristic more or less holds, with almost no exceptions.
Show threadCharlie Stross9h ago
@militant_dilettante I suspect there used to be some who weren't, who genuinely thought they were doing the right thing for their nation … and they got shoved out of the way or trampled by the mob. And then there's Liz Truss, who *believes* every scam, fraud, and grift they feed her and earnestly regurgitates them without understanding what it's really about (she's the comic relief on the lecture circuit).
Show threadFrank Bennett 🇯🇵9h ago
@cstross @militant_dilettante If Liz wanted to remedy her public image, she could (pay whatever gatekeeping fee they charge and) join Reform, and then attend a public event with a Comic Relief nose-pincher.
Show threadCharlie Stross9h ago
@fgbjr @militant_dilettante Or she could flee to Dubai or Argentina and publish a tell-all autobiography explaining how she was recruited by the KGB in the upper fifth at Roundhay Grammar School in Leeds and groomed to destabilize the UK by her controller, one V. Putin. At which point … she wouldn't be *popular*, exactly, but her reputation for ineptitude and stupidity would instantly flip upside-down.
Show threadmilitant_dilettante9h ago

@cstross @fgbjr A good strategy, although there is one wrinkle in this storyline (do not tell Liz about it!). V.V.Putin was totally devoted to Germany, and Germanosphere. I doubt he knows even the basic conversational English.

On the other hand, all this East Germany, BRD business of the balding little man could have been one big ruse, and he might be secretly very language-proficient, and a huge UK-nerd (or a general British Isles nerd).

Show threadMarcus Marcius Marcellus
@militant_dilettante @cstross @fgbjr I don't know how devoted Putin is to all things German. But having watched the broadcast of his speech, many years ago, to the Bundestag, I can confirm that his German is very good.
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