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Anne Applebaum
@anneapplebaum
, 4 tweets, 1 min read Read on Twitter
Excellent long read on the oligarch who helped create Viktor Orban. A reminder that the driving force behind his iliberal state is not "Christianity" or the fight against non-existent Muslims. It's corruption. Follow the money. tldr.444.hu/2019/04/22/the…
"Right before the 2014 election, Orbán and Simicska used options contracts to tie the fate of the country's largest media companies to themselves, effectively ensuring their hidden influence for years to come"
"While Orbán and Simicska laid the foundation of their empire for their next term in government, they didnt forget to pocket public funds on an unprecedented scale. According to public databases, Simicska took home well over HUF 60 billion (USD 210 million) in profits in 6 years"
all of this brought to you by the journalist @danielrenyi
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Anne Applebaum
@anneapplebaum
A woman in Poland has been arrested for making posters of the Virgin Mary with rainbow halos
...thus making the image famous
Read 3 tweets
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Anne Applebaum
@anneapplebaum
The main problem with this, as all other attempts at sophisticated descriptions of Trump foreign policy, is that it leaves out the most important factor: greed. Trump does not what is best for America but what is best for himself and his company foreignpolicy.com/2019/04/20/the…
Also doesn't understand the EU, which he describes using the language of British Euroscepticism. And relies on Hazony's astonishingly ahistoric book. But those are secondary problems. Greed, self-dealing and nepotism are the essence of this presidency.
Trump doesn't believe in anything. It's not America First, it's Trump first. Always. No one who reads the Mueller report can believe this is a patriotic presidency.
Read 3 tweets
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Anne Applebaum
@anneapplebaum
Hungary is lost. And the EU - and the US - did nothing to save it. zeit.de/amp/politik/au…
"Because Orbán has not been ostracized by the EU, the U.S., or any international bodies, his hateful nationalistic "illiberal" rhetoric is spreading fast, even as he tries either to pull the EU to the far right or create a Putin-style frozen conflict on the EU political stage"
"The EU would have done a great service to Hungarian constitutional democracy, culture and society had it cut off funding in time"
Read 5 tweets

Related threads

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Jordan McSwiney
@jordan_mcswiney
1. With the full list of #ausvotes candidates released by the AEC, here’s a thread detailing the interconnectedness of Australian far-right parties and candidates. Conspiracy theorists, anti-mosque campaigners and neo-Nazis — #ausvotes19 has really got it all!
2. Pauline Hanson’s One Nation (ON) – Australia’s leading far-right party is standing a total of 71 candidates at the election, up from 31 in 2016 and 15 in 2013. Neither of ON’s current senators, Pauline Hanson (QLD) or Peter Georgiou (WA) are up for election this year.
3. Kate McCulloch (Senate, NSW) is a long time ON activist. McCulloch was a key organiser in the campaign against a proposed Islamic school in Camden, south-west of Sydney in 2008. Her activism earned her the moniker ‘the next Pauline Hanson’.

smh.com.au/national/am-i-…
Read 79 tweets
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Patrick Kingsley
@PatrickKingsley
Having consolidated power at home, Viktor #Orban's proxies are now shoring up his allies across Central and Eastern Europe — by buying up or founding right-wing media outlets. My latest article nytimes.com/2018/06/04/wor…
One beneficiary has been Janez Jansa, the right-wing nationalist whose party won the Slovenian elections on Sunday. If Jansa manages to form a coalition govt, #Orban would have another strong ally at the EU council
These investments in foreign media are not made directly by Orban himself. But the links are clear.
Read 7 tweets
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Asaf Ronel
@AsafRonel
Read the story of the of 8-month-old Layla Ghandour, who died after breathing Israeli tear gas when her grandmother was holding her in the #GreatReturnMarch protest camp, 100s of meters away from the #GazaFence. By @declanwalsh
nyti.ms/2IpSxcA
And if you want to see how does it look like when the new Israeli tear gas drones attack the #GreatReturnMarch protest camps, where families stay 100s of meters away from the #GazaFence, here is an example
#ICYMI:
@IDFSpokesperson admitted: #GreatReturnMarch is Palestinian PR success. But soldiers killed 100 protesters & nothing changed in Gaza.
Israel says Hamas doesn't want war.
Yesterday there were no protests
but more shots were fired at Israel than since the protests begun.
Read 15 tweets
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Patrick Kingsley
@PatrickKingsley
Last month I wrote about Viktor #Orban's assault on the hardware of #Hungary's democracy — its constitution, electoral system and judiciary. Here's the follow-up piece on how he's also gone after its "software" — culture, civil society, and education nytimes.com/2018/03/27/wor…
You can see it in the little changes to the textbooks
And in the theaters
Read 10 tweets
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Emily
@emlas
Long game: Reunions appear to be a theme when looking back at the Trump campaign. What if Trump was working with Mercers & CA all along, with a strategic divide & conquer strategy in 2015, only to reunite in 2016 with the components needed to carry Trump to victory?
CA was w/Cruz 2015-early 2016:

"..exploited personal information to create psychological profiles on millions of Americans. All to keep lining the pockets of Cruz's billionaire super PAC donors—like Robert Mercer, who funded this propaganda machine."

thehill.com/blogs/blog-bri…
Lock down the base:
Working with Cruz, Cambridge Analytica built out their capabilities and the Mercers PAC took in millions as Keep the Promise, only to morph into Make America #1 PAC in June 2016.
@ninaandtito
Read 9 tweets
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A Silent Noise
@thedreamreaper
207. UCHE DIKE was an odd ball with a mild distasteful sense of fashion when he first gained admission into Nnamdi Azikiwe university in Anambra State, Nigeria.

Uche was one of those students in school who occasionally wore bogus long sleeved shirts...
208... and carton-coloured trousers that looked like something that came out of a thrift shop in the
1980's.

A geek eyeglass, an afro, a black duffle bag and a brown shoe that shares the same oddity with Uche's choice of clothing, was also part of his signature appearance.
209. Uche was an awkward young man which made him an easy target for bullies.

Sometimes he felt there was a mental sticker on his head that screamed
'Bully me. Bully me. Bully me'.

Uche was the real definition of "Fashion makes you stand out." His mentality...
Read 1142 tweets

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