When bombast meets moral bankruptcy by Eze Ogbu

Working for Donald Trump is like riding a runaway carnival carousel: dizzying, precarious, and full of sound and fury. Imagine then, that just days after he unleashed a barrage of bluster at the Nigerian government, threatening war, speaking of “total devastation,” framing global conflict in transactional terms, the world watched as terrorists struck in tragic, decidedly un-cinematic fashion. Over 300 schoolchildren and a dozen teachers were abducted at St. Mary’s Catholic School in Niger State, Nigeria. This horrific event didn’t register as his greatest foreign-policy moment. Rather, it exposed something far more telling, moral bankruptcy dressed as bravado.

Trump’s verbal assault on Nigeria wasn’t rooted in careful diplomacy. It was performative, transactional, rant-fueled. He cast the country as a failing actor in a global marketplace of influence, threatening to withdraw recognition, threaten war, or destabilize things entirely, his words swinging like a machete in a political jungle, lopsided and aggressive. And here, nearly simultaneously, was a real crisis: children torn from classrooms, teachers forced into terror. The contrast should have caused a collective moral recoil, but instead, the spectacle of his bombast overshadowed the substance of suffering.

To work under that kind of man is to internalize a stark disjunction: public threats paired with private impotence. The administration’s grandstanding about Nigerian governance does nothing to redeem its failure to protect innocents or to condemn abductions with the kind of global moral clarity that might actually make a difference. If anything, Trump’s hawkish language gave the world a distorted metaphor: as if Nigeria were a toy to be broken or bartered, rather than a nation where children yearn to learn in peace.

We might wish that attention toward Nigeria’s plight sprang purely from altruism. But in this world of power, urgency often arrives on the back of self-interest and in Trump’s case, cornucopia of theatrics. His threats were not an outpouring of concern for Nigeria’s future; they were an overture in his transactional politics: “If you don’t do this, we’ll do that. If you don’t pay, we’ll pull back.” Yet when gunmen stormed into a Catholic school and snatched hundreds of young lives, the performative war cries turned eerily hollow.

Abductions in Nigeria are sadly not new, kidnappings of students have become almost routine, a grotesque testament to the failures of regional governance, extremist opportunism, and global indifference. But what should have made this abduction resonate was not just its scale but its timing: following the bluster from Trump’s lips, days after he had painted Nigeria as inept and dangerous. The world was primed to hear warnings, to watch fireworks; instead, it got a tragedy that blew past the rhetoric and laid bare a ruthlessness no amount of sabre-rattling could repair.

The irony is biting and brutal: in his bid to corner Nigeria into submission, Trump spoke in abstractions, state failure, instability, diplomatic leverage. But in real life, the failures are concrete. Weak infrastructure, failing security forces, deeply vulnerable communities. The children snatched from St. Mary’s weren’t pawns in geopolitical grandstanding. They were human beings, and their abduction punctures the farce of transactional diplomacy.

There is, of course, a temptation to frame this as a foreign policy failure and it is. But it’s more than that. It’s a moral failure of prioritization. What does it mean to threaten war when you can’t protect children? To chant economic leverage when you aren’t even ensuring basic security partnerships? To preach “America First” while ignoring that global responsibility sometimes requires more than a bombastic tweet.

It should boggle the mind that a showman’s voice could drown out the crying horror of real violence. But it does. In the cacophony of threats and counter-threats, the moral gravity of what happens in Nigerian backwaters, where Catholic schools can become deathtraps, becomes a footnote. And that’s no accident. That’s the architecture of neglect.

Those kidnapped children deserve more than a tweetstorm. They deserve an international system that refuses to treat their nation as a bargaining chip. They deserve real aid, serious diplomacy, relentless pressure on local and regional actors to guarantee their safe return. They deserve moral leadership that doesn’t require the next headline, the next deal, the next slice of leverage.

And what of working under Trump through all this? It likely feels like watching a pyrotechnic show while fires rage in the distance, spectacular from your seat, but destructive for everyone else. Yes, the stage dazzles. But the backdrop burns.

In the end, the tragedy of St. Mary’s isn’t just a commentary on Nigerian security; it’s a mirror held up to American posturing. Threatening war is easy. Sending real help, showing consistent solidarity, building trust, demanding accountability that’s hard. Bombast is cheap. Leadership, real leadership grounded in humanity, has a price.

If we continue to let the loudest, most incendiary voices dominate global discourse, we risk turning every foreign tragedy into background noise. And the voices that matter most, the terrified children in a Catholic school, the grieving teachers, the families waiting by the phone, will be drowned out by the next political spectacle.

Trump’s threats were loud. But his commitment was shallow. And as those young lives hang in peril, that dissonance echoes with devastating consequence. The world must do more than listen. It must act, with urgency, with humanity, and with a moral clarity that no amount of grandstanding can replace.

Scared loyalist by Emma Schneider

In an unexpected and stunning turn, Marjorie Taylor Greene, once one of Donald Trump’s most ardent MAGA champions, has announced her resignation from Congress. For a woman who built her political identity around raw loyalty to Trump, conspiracy fervor and bitter attacks on the establishment, her exit reads less like a graceful bow out and more like a capitulation born of fear.

Greene’s rise was meteoric. She came into Congress proclaiming herself a truth-seeker and provocateur, firing salvos against norms, calling for the release of secret Epstein files, and jeering at opponents with relish. But over time, she became not just a defender of Trump but an instrument of his brand: bold, abrasive, formidable. Yet now, confronted by his wrath, she retreats. Trump, the very figure she insisted she served above all, reportedly called her a “traitor.” That word, echoing from the lips of a man she once deified, seems to have triggered something far more primal than political disagreement.

In her farewell video, Greene said, “I refuse to be a ‘battered wife’ hoping it all goes away and gets better.” It was a raw metaphor, uncharacteristically vulnerable. The image of a battered spouse is not one we expect from a bomb-throwing congresswoman who has built a career on ferocity. But it tells us everything, Trump’s power, once a buoy, has turned into a burden. And buying into his mythology evidently carries psychological costs as well as political risks.

Greene’s resignation isn’t just a political calculation. It’s a window into the paradox of loyalty in this movement. Trump’s followers are often the loudest defenders, ready to stomach social ostracism, mockery, even personal threats but their devotion is conditional. When the cult leader turns on you, there is little recourse. To cross Trump is not a misdemeanor; in his universe, it’s treason. Greene found this out the hard way.

And so, she retreats. She frames her departure in defensive terms, painting herself as someone who refuses to be a victim any longer. That framing is telling: she isn’t leaving because she’s tired, or because she’s fulfilled her mission. She’s leaving because she’s scared. And perhaps more than anything, she’s scared of the man she once elevated above all.

Here lies a broader lesson about the Trump ecosystem: the bravest voices are often the most fragile. Those who raised the volume, who stormed the gates, who declared themselves fearless, are sometimes the first to crumble when the master of the universe looks in their direction and says, “You betrayed me.” Their defiance, it seems, was never their own. It was a borrowed power, power granted by a tyrant, and just as easily withdrawn.

This resignation also reveals a deeper transactional quality to Trumpism: loyalty is repaid not with respect, but with leverage. In Greene’s case, her sin was not doctrinal deviation or policy failure. Rather, she apparently crossed an unwritten line, something only Trump knows and enforces. When he calls you a traitor, it's not just an insult. It’s a sentence. And in his court, your only options are to submit or to be broken.

Her metaphor of the battered wife is more than rhetorical flourish; it’s psychological realism. In abusive relationships, personal, political, or ideological, the abuser wields control not just through punishment, but through fear. Even the most outspoken victims can become silenced when they realize that the subject of their loyalty has the power to end them. Greene’s departure suggests that her loyalty wasn’t unconditional. It was a Faustian bargain.

There’s a certain irony in this letting-go: Greene, who obsessed over secrecy, Epstein’s scandals, and conspiracies from the deep state, apparently never grasped the basic truth about her own situation. The greatest secret wasn’t in Epstein’s files it was in Trumpism itself. The movement was built on loyalty, not ideology. It was never about a coherent political vision, but about devotion to the man. And now that her devotion has slipped or perhaps she has simply exhausted the psychological cost of it, she is cut loose.

Her resignation resonates beyond her individual story. It’s a mirror held up to an entire political ecosystem. What happens when the loudest MAGA voices realize their megaphone can be switched off at any moment? What happens when the apologists, the insurgents, the jihadis of Trump’s base, recognize that their defiance can evaporate with a single word from him?

Greene’s departure is not the death knell of MAGA, far from it. But it may be a signal, at least to those paying attention, that the movement’s rebel heart is more fragile than its swagger suggests. And that the cost of loyalty is far heavier than the veneer of fanaticism lets on.

At its core, this is not just a political retreat. It’s a psychological revelation. Her exit suggests that the bravado, the calls for declassification, the incendiary rhetoric, all masked a deeper insecurity. If Greene could be dismantled by the man she once branded a hero, what does that say about those who remain, the ones who have yet to be crossed?

Donald Trump built a movement on the promise that he would never abandon you. But what we are seeing now, in Greene sneaking out the back door, is that perhaps the moment he doesn’t need you anymore, he simply tosses you aside. Loyalty, it turns out, has a shelf life. And when the time comes, even the fiercest protector can become collateral damage.

Marjorie Taylor Greene didn’t just walk away from Congress, she walked out of the illusion that she was untouchable. In exposing her fear, she revealed the lie that bound her: that in Trump’s world, power was mutual. It wasn’t. And she paid the price for believing otherwise.

Ghosts in the siesta by Marja Heikkinen

Spain, it seems, is haunted not by the distant specter of Franco himself, long dead and interred in a mausoleum of memory, but by something far more insidious: the restless energy of a new generation who see the country’s past, present, and future through a narrow, unforgiving lens. The cruel irony is that Franco returns not with the iron fist of yesteryear, not with the black-shined boots or the endless parades but through young Spaniards who wield blame like a cudgel, pointing at socialists as the architects of every modern ill, as if the sins of the past were not compounded by their own selective amnesia.

There is a particular cruelty in this. History is rarely neat, and Spain’s story is one of tangled loyalties, bloody reckonings, and a democracy fought for in the teeth of dictatorship. Yet, in 2025, one encounters, with alarming frequency, a cohort who prefer moral simplicity over the messy truth. Socialists, communists, leftists, pick your label, are routinely cast as the villains of a narrative that stretches back to “original sin,” an inherited blame that conveniently absolves their own ideological forebears. It is a sophisticated form of historical revivalism, one that dresses itself as patriotism, but feels more like exhumation. Franco’s shadow is long, but it is not the dictatorship itself that lingers, it is the idea of it, resurrected in a rhetorical theater where nuance is heresy and critical thinking optional.

What makes this particularly disquieting is the generational twist. One might have assumed that distance from the trauma of the dictatorship would encourage reflection, critical thought, and empathy. Instead, some young Spaniards have absorbed the ghosts of the past not as cautionary tales but as badges of identity. The cruelty lies in how they rewrite memory, not with new scholarship or earnest inquiry, but with a casual certainty: that all misfortune, all corruption, all political failure, must flow from a socialist root. The past is compressed, sanitized, weaponized. Franco himself need not rise from his tomb; the ideology of fear and blame has become self-propagating.

In cities like Madrid or Seville, one sees this new dogma unfold in social media feeds, barroom debates, and family tables where history is distilled into a morality play of absolute guilt and innocence. A teenager lectures on fiscal policy as if they personally endured the suppression of union rights; a young professional derides cultural subsidies as if they had witnessed the censorship of playwrights and poets. The performance is impeccable in its conviction, chilling in its unawareness. There is little acknowledgment that the Spain they inhabit, the one they gripe about, vote for, or idolize is the product of painstaking compromise, decades of democratic labour, and the quiet, relentless courage of those who resisted authoritarianism in both its overt and subtle forms.

This is not merely a debate about politics; it is an exercise in collective memory. And memory, as any historian or psychologist will tell you, is fragile, malleable, easily co-opted. By blaming socialists for nearly everything, the new generation is practicing a form of intellectual necromancy, resurrecting a past that conveniently justifies present anxieties. They don’t see that their anger, their certainty, their moral rigor, is itself an echo of Francoist thought: an insistence on hierarchical blame, on a singular villain, on a clean, moralistic narrative that spares them the discomfort of historical complexity.

One might argue that every country has its ideological cycles, and Spain is no exception. Yet there is something uniquely dissonant in watching children of democracy invoke the authoritarian past as their moral compass. It is not simply nostalgia; it is re-enactment, albeit through the prism of blame rather than boots. The cruelty is doubled: the nation’s history is reduced to caricature, and those who suffered under real repression are consigned to a supporting role in a story written by strangers with no memory of their terror.

It is tempting to dismiss this as generational posturing, a phase that will burn itself out. But the consequences are real. A society that simplifies its past cannot fully grapple with its present. When young Spaniards, confident in their inherited righteousness, demonize a political lineage that fought for social justice, they contribute to polarization, mistrust, and, paradoxically, a latent admiration for authoritarian certainty. Franco’s specter is alive, not in the cadences of generals, but in the rhetoric of teenagers. He returns in Facebook posts and Instagram threads, in casual dismissals of democratic compromise, in a language of blame that is at once seductive and corrosive.

The question, then, is how Spain moves forward without losing its memory or its moral compass. Perhaps the answer lies in fostering education that encourages empathy, nuance, and historical literacy not merely a catalogue of victories and losses, but the human stories that underscore them. Perhaps it lies in resisting the simplification of political life into binaries of good and evil. Above all, it requires acknowledging that cruelty can return in quiet, insidious ways: not always through the decree of a dictator, but through the certainties of those too young to remember the lessons that blood and compromise once taught.

Franco is gone, but his ideological echo finds life in unexpected quarters. The real tragedy is that it finds fertile soil in the very hearts that should, by inheritance and responsibility, resist it. The siesta of Spain may be long, but the ghosts of yesterday are still awake, whispering blame to those willing to listen.

Zelenskyy’s narrowing circle by John Kato

There comes a moment in the life of every political leader when the noise surrounding them grows louder than the voice within. For Volodymyr Zelenskyy, that moment seems to be arriving with the slow inevitability of a political tide. Suspicion sometimes grounded in legitimate concern, sometimes inflated by rumor, sometimes weaponized by enemies, has begun to curl around his presidency. In wartime Ukraine, where everything feels sharpened by danger and exhaustion, even shadows cast longer, and Zelenskyy finds himself standing in the lengthening one of corruption allegations that may or may not touch him personally, but unquestionably stain the atmosphere around him.

He has long insisted he is untouched by the rot that notoriously seeped through Ukrainian politics for decades. Critics, however, insist that proximity is its own kind of involvement. Allies fall, advisers resign, ministers are dismissed under clouds that drift perilously close to the presidential palace. Even if the president himself is free of wrongdoing, the optics are unkind, and optics matter, perhaps more in wartime than at any other moment. A wartime leader must project control, clarity, moral advantage. Anything less begins to feel like fragility.

For months, Zelenskyy has resisted what many abroad and at home consider the only legitimate pressure valve: elections. Democratic renewal. A return to the rituals that distinguish Ukraine from the power-obsessed cynicism of the Kremlin. But the president has argued, with some fairness, that elections during ongoing bombardment would be unworkable, unsafe, possibly exploited by Russia itself. This argument held moral and practical weight as long as Zelenskyy stood unmistakably as the unchallenged symbol of national resistance. Yet the longer he waits, the heavier the questions become. Hesitation, once framed as wartime prudence, now risks being read as calculation.

Ukraine is, after all, a nation that has risen again and again against the small tyrannies of delay. The Orange Revolution, the Maidan uprising, each was a refusal to accept a leader’s claim that extraordinary circumstances excused the postponement of democratic accountability. Zelenskyy knows this history intimately. He once embodied its aspirations.

Now, though, something has shifted. You can hear it in the murmur of diplomats who once praised him without qualification, in the open letters penned by Ukrainian civil society leaders, in the increasingly sharp columns written by analysts who were gentler with him a year ago. The murmurs do not yet constitute a damning chorus, but the notes are accumulating.

Zelenskyy’s predicament is not unique. History is littered with wartime leaders who feared elections more than the front line. War magnifies leadership, but it also exposes its seams. What begins as justified caution can harden into an instinct for control. And once a leader begins to fear the electorate, the electorate begins inevitably to fear the leader.

None of this is to diminish the impossible pressures Zelenskyy faces. Ukraine is fighting not only for territory but for existence. Every choice is sharpened by mortal stakes. To call elections without adequate security would be a gift to Russia. To avoid them indefinitely would be a gift to cynicism. The president is caught between dangers, one external, one internal, both existential in their own way.

But this is precisely why elections, eventually, must happen and must be unimpeachably transparent. Not because Zelenskyy’s legitimacy is absent, but because legitimacy, like trust, decays when not periodically renewed. Democratic authority is not a medal earned once and polished forever; it requires the public’s recurring affirmation, especially in moments of national strain.

Zelenskyy, more than most leaders, understands the power of narrative. His presidency began with a story, a political outsider who stood up to a corrupt system. Now he stands at risk of being written into a different story, one that insists even the idealists are eventually swallowed by the machinery they swore to dismantle.

He has a choice, and the choice is still his to make. He can interpret the rising suspicions as a warning from a people who believe too deeply in their democracy to allow it to drift. He can call for elections not as an act of surrender but as an act of strength, proof that Ukraine’s democratic identity is resilient enough to withstand even this darkest hour. That would not merely silence critics; it would restore the moral contrast that has fueled global support for Ukraine since the first day of invasion.

The alternative is far more perilous. Should Zelenskyy appear to cling to power, even unintentionally, even temporarily, even with reasonable arguments at hand, the narrative will begin to slip from his grasp. Rumor will become certainty to those predisposed to doubt him. Allies may quietly step back. Public patience always finite, may fracture.

In wartime, leaders are defined not only by the battles they fight on the front lines but by the ones they choose to fight within themselves. The temptation to delay accountability is understandable. But the cost of yielding to it may be irreparable.

If Zelenskyy wants to preserve the legacy he once seemed destined to hold, the president who defended not only Ukraine’s land but its democratic soul, he must step toward elections, not away from them. Transparent, credible, indisputable elections.

Because in the end, the darkest suspicion is not that a leader is corrupt, but that he is afraid of his own people. And that is a suspicion no democracy can endure.

Always something #116 #Cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

 

Mix a little childhood silliness with adult seriousness
and you are always up to something;
trouble most of the time!

For more Always something; the family edition, HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!

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A perilous pitch by Timothy Davies

In the latest turn of this tragic play Ukraine finds itself at a monumental crossroads. After Donald Trump demanded that Kyiv accept, within days, a U.S.–backed “peace plan” that would force Ukraine to cede territory and make other painful concessions, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has soberly acknowledged that his country now faces “one of the most difficult moments in its history.” But while his words strike with urgency, it is not only external pressure that threatens Ukraine’s future it is also Zelenskyy’s own strategy, which seems caught between principled defiance and desperate pragmatism.

A peace plan crafted under duress, backed by a man who has consistently undermined Western unity and cheered by Vladimir Putin offers no genuine pathway to freedom. Putin, more than anyone must be smiling. He has watched the West fracture, seen allies stumble, and now sees former patrons like Trump swinging a wrecking ball at Ukrainian sovereignty. In his victory the Russian president is not just a predator; he is a masterful puppeteer, weaving discord with surgical precision.

Meanwhile, Europe looks on, numbed or perhaps paralyzed by a familiar ennui. For two decades, European leaders have stumbled from one crisis to the next; often hoping that someone else will do the heavy lifting. Their diplomatic muscle has softened and their moral voice, once robust, now echoes with uncertainty. In the face of Trump’s ultimatum they are silent, reluctant to break ranks and fearful that dissent will invite retaliation. This is the Europe we’ve come to know, cautious, fractious, and unable to speak with one clear moral purpose.

And Zelenskyy? He is left with an impossible dilemma. To reject Trump’s proposal outright might risk losing vital Western support or worse sow discord within his own ranks. But to accept is to betray the very principles on which his nation has staked its future. In this tension lies a kernel of his own undoing. In his hour of greatest need, Zelenskyy has gambled on Western unity, counting on a chorus of calls for solidarity. That chorus has failed to materialize.

His decision to publicly decry the demands feels simultaneously brave and flawed. It’s brave because he refuses to yield to foreign coercion even when doing so might ease his burdens. But it is flawed because it presupposes a level of Western cohesion that simply does not exist. He speaks as if Europe will march with him, as if the U.S. under any other leadership would not try to bargain Ukraine away. His words summon great ideals but his strategy reveals a vulnerability that of a leader who built his strategy around alliances that may not be as steadfast as he imagined.

Zelenskyy’s greatest weakness may be that he misread his own leverage. He believed that his moral clarity, his resistance, his appeals to the world’s conscience would bind the West together against Russian aggression. Instead, they have revealed how conditional that solidarity really is. His rhetoric has not translated into unshakable commitments. The West applauds his courage but when cornered, it hesitates.

And so Ukraine faces a choice that no nation should ever have to make: between existential resistance or existential compromise. Accepting Trump’s roadmap would mean surrendering territory, conceding to demands that could weaken its long-term security. Rejecting it risks political isolation, or worse, a slow unraveling of the fragile international support upon which Ukraine’s survival depends. It is a choice between losing land or losing hope.

This moment reveals a deeper failure, not only of Western statesmanship but of Zelenskyy’s realist instincts. He has been a charismatic wartime president, a symbol of defiance. But charisma alone is not enough when the international system fractures. His leadership, for all its inspirational power, has not built institutions strong enough to withstand a coercive exit strategy laid down by a former U.S. president intent on rewriting the rules.

Worse, his refusal or inability to build stronger bilateral frameworks with European powers in recent months feels like a strategic miscalculation. Instead of weaving a dense web of security guarantees, economic lifelines, and political assurances, he may have allowed Ukraine to drift toward a dangerous dependence, not just on the goodwill of Europe, but on the ever-shifting whims of global power brokers.

So what should he do now? Zelenskyy must pivot, but carefully. He needs to broaden his diplomatic gambit beyond public condemnations and stirring speeches, to serious engagement with skeptical European capitals, cultivating not just moral solidarity but tangible commitments. He must also prepare his own people for the kind of austere resilience that may lie ahead, because the peace plan on offer is less a peace than a poison pill.

He needs to recalibrate his message: not just as a beacon of resistance, but as a shrewd negotiator who recognizes the brutal realities of power, while refusing to sacrifice national dignity. He must take seriously the risk that the West will push him into submission and make sure he can counter that by offering credible alternatives that do not simply capitulate.

Zelenskyy’s predicament is not just a test of Ukraine’s strength; it’s a test of his own leadership. He must show that he is more than a wartime icon; he must act as a statesman capable of navigating back-channel diplomacy, leveraging asymmetric alliances, and preserving the core of what Ukraine stands for, even if it means confronting the West’s deepest contradictions.

If he fails, Ukraine’s future could be mortgaged to a plan that feels like peace but functions like subjugation. And if he succeeds, he might yet steer his nation through the most treacherous passage it has ever faced. The irony, of course, is that in demanding him to fold, the world has only underscored how formidable he really is. That perhaps is his greatest strength and his greatest danger.

The cracks in Viktor’s fortress by Gabriele Schmitt

There is a particular stillness that settles over a country when one man has ruled it long enough for his fingerprints to appear not only on every institution, but on the very psychology of the nation. Hungary knows that stillness too well. Viktor Orbán has spent the better part of a decade and a half transforming a parliamentary democracy into something closer to a curated ecosystem, one in which every organism, from the courts to the media to the electoral machinery, is cultivated to ensure his continued flourishing. He has staged, managed, and micromanaged the system so thoroughly that even calling Hungary an “illiberal democracy,” his preferred euphemism, feels overly generous.

And yet, something curious is happening. It is as though the fortress he built, brick by bureaucratic brick, has begun to hum with faint internal tremors. For the first time in years, Hungarians are letting themselves imagine that the next election might not be a foregone conclusion. That Orbán’s long era, equal parts theatre, nationalism, grievance, and patronage, could be approaching an end. That Hungary might, at last, re-enter the currents of Europe instead of stubbornly swimming against them.

To understand why this moment feels different, one must first acknowledge Orbán’s extraordinary talent for survival. Few leaders in Europe are as deft at weaponizing resentment. Orbán makes politics feel primordial: someone is always coming, always invading, migrants, Brussels bureaucrats, George Soros, “gender ideology,” the West, the East, the liberals, the globalists, pick any villain and he has turned it into a reliable energy source. But the trick has begun to wear thin. Even populism ages. The slogans that once ignited crowds now feel like a talk radio program nobody bothers to switch off, because they barely notice it’s playing.

Ordinary Hungarians, teachers, farmers, young professionals fleeing to Berlin for economic dignity, are living with the consequences of Orbán’s governance, and it shows. Inflation has bitten deeper than national pride can cushion. Corruption scandals leak into the open with numbing regularity. Orbán’s foreign policy tightrope walk, particularly his intimacy with Vladimir Putin, has become harder to justify in a Europe scarred and shaken by Russia’s war on Ukraine. Even many of Orbán’s once-reliable supporters now watch him with a subtle, quiet irritation, the way one might regard a cousin who cannot stop embarrassing himself at family dinners.

And then there is Europe, watchful, impatient, quietly hoping but publicly cautious. For years, the Hungarian prime minister has positioned himself as Europe’s enfant terrible, the man who could turn every EU summit into a hostage situation. But by now, Orbán’s theatrics have crossed the threshold from charming nuisance to structural threat. Brussels has learned his moves, and some countries have tired of his monologues. If Hungarians decide to change course in the upcoming elections, it will not simply be a national correction; it will be a continental one. The ripple effects could be enormous. Hungary could swing back from being Europe’s cautionary tale to becoming a case study in political restoration.

Still, it would be naïve to pretend the system Orbán built will simply hand over the keys. His electoral machine remains a masterpiece of slow, careful distortion. Gerrymandered districts, a tightly gripped media landscape, and a public sphere soaked in government messaging together form a kind of democratic hologram, something that looks like a competition but behaves more like a ritual. Dismantling this architecture will take not only a vote, but stamina from citizens who have been told for years that resistance is futile.

Yet here we are, on the threshold of an election that feels strangely electric. It is increasingly clear that no matter how cleverly a leader rigs the chessboard, politics eventually returns to something elemental: exhaustion. Even authoritarian-leaning rule requires currency, hope, fear, anger, aspiration and Orbán has spent nearly all of it. Hungarians may finally be reaching that collective fatigue from which revolutions, restorations, and unexpected electoral shifts are born.

The opposition, fragmented though it often is, does not need to be perfect; it needs only to embody the possibility of difference. That possibility alone has begun to activate something in the national imagination: curiosity. What would a post-Orbán Hungary look like? More importantly, what would it feel like? A country that has lived under the same political atmosphere for so long can forget the psychic exhilaration of air that suddenly changes temperature.

The promise of the next Hungarian election is not that it will magically undo the years of democratic decay. It won’t. But it could begin the long, difficult process of rebuilding the habits of accountability, independence, and civic confidence, habits that any democracy, even a wounded one, can relearn. Europe, similarly, would gain more than a symbolic victory. It would regain a partner that has long drifted into the orbit of strongmen and self-styled saviours.

Perhaps that is why, for the first time in a long while, the sense of stillness in Hungary no longer feels permanent. It feels anticipatory.

Change in politics is like weather: it begins subtly, quietly, in shifts of pressure that most of us only recognize in retrospect. Orbán’s Hungary has been a long winter. But winter cannot rule forever.

Lunar fever with billionaires and nations racing by Brea Willis

It is almost comical, in the tragicomic sense, that humanity’s next great adventure, returning to the moon has less to do with exploration than with ego. Once, the lunar landings were a matter of national pride, a high-stakes contest between two superpowers vying for ideological supremacy. Now, the narrative has shifted, and the actors have changed: the astronauts are still there, of course, but the drama is increasingly written by billionaires whose private fortunes are the new propulsion systems for national ambition.

The moon, in this version of the story, is less a celestial body to be studied than a boardroom. Elon Musk promises Martian ambitions while polishing his lunar résumé. Jeff Bezos peddles lunar mining dreams, envisioning a supply chain beyond Earth. China methodically positions itself with state-backed lunar missions, quietly demonstrating that this is still a matter of strategic muscle. And in between these high-profile players are smaller nations, India, the UAE, Japan, staking symbolic flags, each hoping to show that, yes, we too can step onto the surface of the moon without tripping over our own budgetary shoelaces.

This is not the moon landing of the past. There is no single, unified mission, no moment that captures the collective imagination in quite the same way as Armstrong’s “one small step.” Instead, we have a scattershot, almost chaotic pursuit of lunar real estate and orbital influence. And while there is undeniably science in these ventures, important, sometimes brilliant science, it is often overshadowed by the theatre of personalities, press releases, and the quiet but insidious influence of capital.

It is fascinating, in a slightly absurd way, to witness a billionaire space race unfold alongside the very real challenges of climate change, pandemic fatigue, and geopolitical instability. The optics are stark, humanity, with its mess of Earthly problems, is now betting that our salvation or at least our prestige, resides 238,900 miles away. The moon, which was once a symbol of what we could achieve together, has become a stage for what we can achieve individually or more accurately what the wealthiest among us can achieve.

Yet there is a certain poetry to this chaos. The private ventures are daring in ways governments often cannot be. Risk-taking, once the domain of nation-states and astronauts trained to near-perfection, now has the reckless charm of private capital. Musk’s Starship launches, with flames and fireballs, are reminders that exploration is still messy, unpredictable, and sometimes spectacular. There is something thrilling about that: a reminder that adventure need not be sanitized. But there is also a nagging question: what happens when spectacle outpaces substance?

Consider the consequences. Lunar mining, lunar tourism, lunar bases: these are not science fiction but a very real possibility in the next decade. And yet, these ventures are happening with minimal oversight, no clear framework for international cooperation, and a capitalist urgency that prizes speed over equity. The moon is not a blank canvas; it is a shared heritage. Will it remain so, or will it become the province of those who can afford to reach it first? In this new race, dollars and their accompanying social power, may matter more than knowledge, collaboration, or ethics.

And still, despite these concerns, one cannot entirely dismiss the optimism that comes with renewed lunar attention. The new moon missions are inspiring young engineers, scientists, and dreamers in ways social media activism and virtual classrooms cannot. The notion that human beings might once again walk on another world is inherently seductive, regardless of who foots the bill. There is a hope, faint but persistent, that even amidst billionaires’ hubris, some good science will emerge, some discoveries will enrich our understanding of the cosmos, and perhaps, in an ironic twist, even benefit life here on Earth.

But let us not romanticize it too much. This is not a clean narrative of humanity advancing together. It is a messy, uneven, deeply human story: egos and nations, money and ideology, ambition and recklessness, all tangled together with the faint glow of Earthlight reflecting off the lunar surface. And therein lies the fascination: watching a billionaire casually orbiting the moon while the rest of the world struggles to orbit its own problems is absurd, maddening, and oddly poetic.

So yes, the moon is back in vogue. But this time, it comes with a twist: the old space race was a test of national will; the new one is a test of who has the money to imagine and act on new frontiers. It is a race that is less about flags and footprints and more about narratives, personal brands, and influence in a world increasingly defined by wealth and spectacle. And while we cheer for the astronauts, engineers, and scientists, we must also watch the billionaires. Because in this new lunar era, they are not just passengers on the voyage they are, in many ways, the pilots.

#eBook: Star Chamber by H. B. Fyfe

Fyfe explores the dynamics between a law enforcement officer and a fugitive, delving into the moral implications of punishment versus the obligation of society to help its members heal. The story centers on Quasmin, a fugitive hiding on an uncharted planet after a series of crimes, including murder and drug smuggling.

When J. Trolla, a law enforcement officer, lands on the planet, he quickly discovers Quasmin's presence and confronts him about his past. The two engage in a tense dialogue where Trolla assumes the roles of judge and jury, questioning the very foundations of justice outside of civilization.

As Quasmin attempts to evade Trolla and manipulate the situation to his advantage, Trolla leaves behind supplies and tools, suggesting a deeper complexity regarding societal obligations to criminals. Ultimately, Quasmin realizes he has been sentenced to a lifetime of isolation, confronting the consequences of his actions in a unique twist on justice.

There were no courts on the isolated world. But there was a Judge.

H. B. Fyfe was a prolific science fiction author known for his ability to craft engaging narratives that transported readers to imaginative worlds. "Luna Escapade" is a testament to his talent for blending science fiction with elements of adventure and discovery.

In Public Domain
First Published 1963
Ovi eBook Publishing 2025

Star Chamber

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AntySaurus Prick #120 #Cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas

 

Dino is a vegetarian virgin dinosaur and his best friend is Anty,
a carnivorous nymphomaniac ant.
They call themselves the AntySaurus Prick and they are still here
waiting for the comet to come!

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The murky new frontier of transnational repression by Thanos Kalamidas

Murray Hunter’s ordeal is not a distant legal footnote. It’s a vivid warning shot, cross-border censorship has moved from shady backroom diplomacy to open judicial cooperation and the price may be freedom itself.

Hunter, an Australian journalist based in southern Thailand, was arrested at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport on 29 September under a criminal defamation charge filed in Thailand but sparked, as he insists, by Malaysia. The crime? Four Substack essays in which he crucified the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) for overreach, political bias, and silencing dissent. He was released on bail; his passport confiscated, and now faces a trial beginning on 22 December

Let that sink in, Hunter was NOT arrested in Malaysia. He's NOT tried in Malaysia. He was arrested in Thailand for criticizing a Malaysian regulator. This isn’t merely an attack on one man; it’s an alarming expansion of oppression across borders and a blueprint that other authoritarian-leaning governments could replicate at will.

There’s a name for this, transnational repression. Rights groups and UN observers have long sounded the alarm. Hunter himself describes this as a kind of Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation SLAPP, in other words where governments weaponize legal systems abroad to shut down critics. In his case, the MCMC filed police reports not only in Malaysia but in Thailand as well and even initiated a civil suit in a Malaysian court that ruled against him in his absence.

Consider the implications. If a communications regulator in one country can issue a complaint that leads to your arrest in another, then journalists are no longer safe in their own homes or even on their way to the airport. As Hunter bluntly put it: “if this can happen to me … anyone … could be picked off a flight and put in a lockup.”

This is more than a slippery slope. It’s a cliff. Authoritarian crackdowns might previously have been confined within national borders; now they’re globalized, conducted through legal arms that have become proxies for silencing dissent. And the worst part? The judicial systems of ostensibly democratic or semi-democratic nations are being complicit, willingly or not.

Thailand, a country itself criticized for its own press-freedom record, has criminal defamation laws that date back decades. These laws disproportionately target critics. Hunter’s case isn’t isolated; it follows a long line of defamation cases used to muzzle opposition and scrutiny. When another state uses those provisions to go after a foreigner, things cross a dangerous boundary.

Let’s be clear, defending institutions from false and malicious claims is legitimate. Accountability matters. But when “accountability” becomes a cudgel to terrorize critics in other jurisdictions, it is no longer about reputation; it’s about control.

MCMC claims it is just protecting its “institutional integrity” and that the rule of law was followed. But context matters. In April 2024, Hunter had publicly accused the commission of acting well beyond its statutory powers, abusing its position, and collaborating with political actors to stifle free speech. He also claimed that MCMC was blocking thousands of websites, including those critical of the government, and acting like a “political Gestapo.” That is not idle lobbying, it’s fearless critique. And until we have irrefutable evidence he lied maliciously, using the force of a foreign court to criminalize him raises red flags.

Even worse, his civil defamation case in Malaysia was decided in his absence, according to Hunter. That smells of a default judgment, a strategy not unfamiliar to governments that want to make examples of dissenters without giving them a fair fight. What does that say about due process? About equal application of the law? About justice?

This should terrify journalists everywhere, regardless of geography. Because if governments can pressure or co-opt foreign legal systems to penalize critics, no one is immune. Today it’s Hunter for criticizing MCMC. Tomorrow, maybe a Turkish journalist gets arrested in Germany for mocking Erdoğan or a British writer gets indicted for lampooning the Greek Prime Minister. This isn’t science fiction; it’s the next generation of censorship.

And make no mistake, ASEAN nations have long flirted with or fully embraced, crackdowns on media freedom. But this case is something different. It is not just national censorship. It is a chilling collaboration across borders, a legal cartel against dissent.

We must call this out. Human rights groups like PEN Malaysia and the Centre for Independent Journalism have already condemned the move, calling it an overreach that undermines free expression. Yet their voices may not be enough. Journalists, activists, and democratic institutions worldwide must wake up to the fact that we're entering a new era where censorship isn’t just local, it’s a transnational apparatus.

If the international community lets this pass without protest, we are essentially giving carte blanche to governments to export their authoritarian instincts. The moral and legal fight here must be louder, more coordinated, more relentless. Free speech is not a bounded territory; it cannot be confined within borders. When it is, we begin to hollow out democracy itself.

In defending Murray Hunter, we defend not just one journalist, but the principle that dissent, criticism, and accountability are not crime, no matter where they originate. Denying that principle is not just an attack on him. It’s an assault on the idea of a free press everywhere.

If we allow foreign regulators to jail journalists in other countries for writing criticism, then we will soon find ourselves in a world where no truth teller is safe, and no voice is truly free.

Check Murray Hunter's eBook HERE!: