WAGE THEFT
53 Maine Prisoners Sue State After Losing Nearly $200K in Unemployment Benefits

BY AARON MCDADE 

ON 1/3/22 

The U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston heard arguments Monday in a lawsuit brought by inmates in Maine who were in prison when they lost their work-release jobs because of the pandemic but were denied unemployment benefits when the payments were halted by the governor and instead placed in a state trust.

The 53 prisoners received and subsequently lost just under $200,000 in unemployment benefits. They sued in the summer of 2020 on the basis that their 14th Amendment rights were violated when the benefits were seized without due process, according to the Bangor Daily News.

The inmates said that after the work-release program was halted as COVID cases began spreading in the early months of the pandemic, prison officials encouraged them to file for the benefits, as they were as entitled to them as anyone else who lost their job due to the pandemic in the state.

The state's attorney general determined the benefits going to inmates was legal before Governor Janet Mills stopped the payments and seized the money that had already gone out, calling it "bad public policy" to send the inmates the payments while others in the state were struggling to receive unemployment benefits weeks after filing for them.

"The central argument that we've made all along is that these individuals should have had some sort of notice or hearing before their benefits were taken," said Carol Garvan, an attorney for one of the inmates who argued the case on Monday.

In March 2021, a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that because the prisoners were not using the benefits for necessities because they were incarcerated at the time, their due process could not be violated by the seizure of the funds without a hearing, the Bangor Daily News reported.

An appeals court heard arguments Monday in a lawsuit over 53 Maine inmates having nearly $200,000 in unemployment benefits seized after losing their work-release jobs because of the pandemic. Above, a person files an application for unemployment benefits on April 16, 2020, in Arlington, Virginia.OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

All told, the prisoners received $198,767 in unemployment benefits with an average amount of $3,750 before the governor intervened to stop the payments.

The benefits included an extra $600 per week through the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program.

Garvan's client worked as a restaurant cook in a work-release program while incarcerated at Bolduc Correctional Facility in Warren, Maine.

The prisoner received more than $10,000 in unemployment benefits. About $8,400 of that was in enhanced benefits provided by Congress. He has since been released from prison.

In putting a stop to the benefits, the governor found the payments to be "appalling and to be bad public policy" and said they should be reserved for Mainers "struggling to pay for basic necessities."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Exploding Meteor That Rattled Pittsburgh Released Energy Equivalent to 30 Tons of TNT

BY KATIE WERMUS 

ON 1/3/22 

Officials said the meteor that exploded over Pittsburgh on News Year's Day released enough energy equivalent to 30 tons (27,216 kilograms) of TNT.

People in the suburbs of Pittsburgh reported hearing a loud boom and said they felt the ground shaking but weren't certain where it came from.

Officials in Allegheny County tweeted early on that authorities had received several reports about the mysterious noise but said it wasn't caused by an earthquake and there was no thunder or lightning reported in the area, Trib Live reported.

Just a few hours after the explosion, experts at the National Weather Service in Pittsburg said the loud noise was likely a meteor exploding, Pittsburgh Magazine reported.

Christina Osorio said her sliding glass door was shaking when she thought what she heard was thunder. "It was like 'Boom!' and it sounded like a rumble." She said she was shocked to hear the meteor was the cause, Trib Live reported.

"It's kind of scary, but it's kind of cool at the same time," she said.

NASA posted on their Meteor Watch Facebook page the loud sound was from the energy caused by the meteor breaking apart which created a blast wave resulting in a sonic boom.

NASA officials said the meteor traveling over Pittsburgh was about a yard in diameter with a mass of about half a ton (454 kilograms) and was traveling at roughly 45,000 mph (72,240 kph).

Heather Lin Ishler told the New York Times the sensation of the meteor exploding was similar to when you stand too close to fireworks and can feel it in your chest.

"It was just the feeling of the shock wave," she said, "but no sound or flash or anything like that."

However, Jill Tarasi, 42, said she was sitting on her couch when she heard the noise. "It sounded like a house was exploding," she said.

The NWS and Carnegie Science Center said the meteor explosion could be connected to a meteor shower that is expected to peak Sunday into Monday, KDKA reported.

NASA said the meteor that exploded above Pittsburgh on New Year's day was traveling about 45,000 mph and was about a yard in diameter. Above, a picture taken in Tours, central France on February 5, 2019, shows a 29 kilos Chondrite meteorite named "Elephant foot", part of the French meteorite hunter Gerard Merrier's collection before he sells it at auction on February 28, 2019 in Vendôme.

GUILLAUME SOUVANT/ AFP/GETTY IMAGES

If not for the cloudy weather, officials said, it would have been easily visible in the daytime sky—maybe about 100 times the brightness of the full moon.

National Weather Service meteorologist Shannon Hefferan told the Tribune-Review that satellite data recorded a flash over Washington County shortly before 11:30 a.m. Saturday and officials believed it was due to a meteor "falling through the atmosphere." Hefferan said a similar event occurred September 17 in Hardy County, West Virginia.

Residents in South Hills and other areas reported hearing a loud noise and feeling their homes shaking and rattling.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

If not for cloudy weather, people of Pittsburgh would have been able to see the meteor as it exploded New Years Day 2022. It would have been 100 times brighter than a full moon. Above, an image of a fireball produced during the Taurid meteor shower recorded by the NASA All Sky Fireball Network station in Cartersville, Georgia, in 2013.NASA

Biden administration reimposes 'Remain in Mexico' policy

Under court order, the Trump-era policy is being executed with new protocols.

By Quinn Owen
3 January 2022

Migrant surge at the border

Biden administration officials further outlined a plan for the implementation of the "MPP" or "Remain in Mexico" policy on a conference call with reporters Monday while underscoring a commitment to ending the program and describing safeguards designed to improve conditions for asylum seeking enrollees.

A central criticism of the MPP program -- which bars asylum seekers from entering the U.S. while immigration courts review their claims -- was the lack of access to U.S. legal services for enrollees forced into makeshift Mexican border camps. Now, the Biden administration is working with legal service providers and promising 24-hour consultation windows to assist with screening interviews and immigration court cases.


Bloomberg via Getty Images, FILE
Vehicles wait to cross the San Ysidro Port of Entry in Tijuana, Mexico, on Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2021.

The Justice Department's Executive Office of Immigration Review is working to increase legal representation rates for asylum seekers while distributing "self-help materials" for immigrant applicants who need information on the process.

Improving conditions south of the border was another component in securing the Mexican government's cooperation. U.S. humanitarian workers have built up WiFi access at shelters, and Mexican authorities have stepped up security including at transportation hubs.
MORE: Biden administration asks Supreme Court to hear 'Remain in Mexico' case

Now, migrants enrolled in MPP will have access to transportation services at the port of entry, something Biden administration officials said is a necessary security measure given the level of crime taking place at border crossings.

MORE: Biden admin makes another attempt to end 'Remain in Mexico' policy

Over the holidays, the Biden administration submitted a request to the Supreme Court for expedited briefings on the case to end MPP. The administration previously lost lower court appeals against efforts to reinstate the protocols.


Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images, FILE
Customs agents check vaccination cards at the San Ysidro Port of Entry on Nov. 8, 2021

Under the latest iteration of MPP, migrants who receive an interview with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will be judged on whether there's a "reasonable possibility" they have a fear of returning to Mexico rather than the previously used and more restrictive "more likely than not" standard.

The new standards are accessible to those like the group of 36 migrants brought to El Paso Monday for court hearings, making them the first to be processed under the new rules.
MORE: US rolls out changes to 'Remain in Mexico' policy pending Mexico agreement

Officials did not provide information on the number of asylum seekers subjected to MPP under the Biden administration's latest implementation efforts, but they did confirm enrollments have started in the El Paso and San Diego regions.

One senior Biden administration official estimated on Monday that the program was costing the U.S. government in excess of "tens of millions of dollars."

Fighting Intensifies in Eastern Colombia; at Least 23 Killed

January 03, 2022 
Associated Press

Colombian President Ivan Duque, center, speaks at a security council meeting requesting reinforcement in Arauca, the border with Venezuela, after clashes between ELN and FARC dissidents left 16 dead in Cartagena, Colombia, on Jan. 3, 2022. (Photo by Colombian Presidency / AFP)

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA —

At least 23 people were killed in Colombia this weekend, and 20 had to flee their homes as fighting between rebel groups intensified in the eastern state of Arauca, Colombia's defense minister said Monday.

The killings mark a setback for Colombia's government, which was able to bring down homicide rates in much of the country following a 2016 peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. But it is now struggling to control violence in rural pockets of the country where smaller rebel groups and drug trafficking organizations are fighting over smuggling routes, coca fields, illegal mines and other assets.

Arauca is home to some of Colombia's largest oil wells and is crossed by a pipeline that is regularly attacked by rebel groups that steal its oil. The state borders Venezuela, and drug trafficking groups have been fighting over its smuggling routes for decades.

In a statement Monday, Colombia's army said the latest outbreak of violence was caused by fighting between the National Liberation Army, or ELN, guerrilla group and former members of the FARC who refused to join the peace deal. The army said that both groups are currently fighting for dominance over the area's drug trade.

FILE - Rebels of the National Liberation Army hold a banner in the northwestern jungles in Colombia, Aug. 30, 2017.

Juan Carlos Villate, a human rights officer in the town of Tame, told Colombia's Blu Radio that he received reports of civilians who were dragged out of their homes and executed on Sunday by members of armed groups. Villate said that he had reports of 50 people who went missing and 27 who were killed over the weekend.

Human Rights Watch said it has received reports of 24 deaths, as well as forced displacements and abductions.

"It appears that the alliance between the ELN and dissidents with the 10th Front of the FARC in the zone has broken," said the group's Colombia expert, Juan Pappier.

Arauca last year received hundreds of refugees who fled from neighboring Venezuela following fighting between the Venezuelan army and FARC splinter groups that also operate on the Venezuelan side of the border.

Colombian President Ivan Duque said on Monday that he would send more troops to the area and increase surveillance flights to intercept armed groups and monitor their activity along the border with Venezuela. Duque accused Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro of providing shelter to some of these rebel groups and said Colombia would fight them "with all its might."

While Colombia's overall murder rate has gone down since the peace deal was signed, homicides and forced displacement have also gone up in some rural pockets of the country that were previously dominated by the FARC and where smaller groups, including the ELN, are now fighting for territorial control.

The ELN guerrillas initiated peace talks with the Colombian government in 2017, but those broke down following an attack on a police academy that killed 23 people.

Peter 'Snakebite' Wright produces late comeback against Michael Smith to claim PDC World Darts Championship

Peter Wright celebrates with the Sid Waddell Trophy after victory against Michael Smith in the World Darts Championship final. John Walton/PA Wire.

January 03 2022 10:50 PM

Peter Wright has won the PDC World Championship for the second time after beating Michael Smith 7-5 in the final at Alexandra Palace.

'Snakebite', who previously beat Michael van Gerwen to win the title in 2020, claimed glory with a strong finish, winning nine of the last 10 legs to become a double world champion.

The 51-year-old got the job done with a double-16 finish to break Smith’s heart.

Smith was dreaming about being one set away from glory leading 5-4 and 2-0 up with the throw, with Wright on the rack.

But the Scot showed his fighting spirit to reel off three successive legs and level at 5-5 as an undulating battle continued to unfold.

Smith created history on his way to taking a 4-3 lead as in the fifth set he plundered his 72nd 180 of the tournament, breaking Gary Anderson’s previous record set in 2017.

The maximums kept on coming, allowing ‘Bully Boy’ to rattle off back-to-back sets as he gained the advantage for the first time.

However, Wright showed great fighting spirit to battle back and claim the title with three successive sets.

Canadian court awards $84M to families over plane shot down by Iran in 2020

BY OLAFIMIHAN OSHIN - 01/03/22 

An Ontario, Canada, court has awarded $84 million to the families of six people who died when Iranian military forces shot down a Ukraine International Airlines plane in 2020, The Guardian reported.

In a statement on Monday, the families' attorney Mark Arnold said they were awarded compensation by the county for the loss of their relatives aboard flight Flight 752.

The court decision was upheld by Justice Edward Belobaba of Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice on Dec. 31, according to The Guardian.

In what Tehran later called a "disastrous mistake," the Iranian Revolutionary Guard shot down the airplane in January 2020, killing all 176 people on board, including 55 Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents.

Arnold also said he will look into seizing Iranian assets in Canada and abroad, adding his team will look to seize whatever it can to pay what the families are owed.

The families also filed a civil lawsuit against Iran and other officials they believe were to blame for the incident, The Guardian reported.

A special Canadian forensic team in a 2021 report accused Iran of incompetence and recklessness over the downing of Flight 752, with Iranian officials criticizing the report as "highly politicized."

The downing of the plane came in the aftermath of U.S. forces killing Iranian Gen. Qassem Suleimani in a missile strike at Baghdad International Airport in January 2020.

Israel orders demolition of 10 Palestinian structures in West Bank

Israel cites lack of building permits in Area C for demolition orders

Qais Abu Samra |03.01.2022

RAMALLAH, Palestine

Israeli authorities have issued demolition orders for 10 Palestinian structures, including a mosque, in the occupied West Bank, according to a local official on Monday.

Salah Fanoun, the mayor of Nahalin village, west of Bethlehem, said Israeli authorities cited lack of building permits in Area C for the demolition orders.

“Four inhabited houses and a mosque are among the list of structures to be demolished,” he told Anadolu Agency.

Area C is under Israel’s administrative and security control until a final status agreement is reached with the Palestinians.

Under the 1995 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, was divided into three portions – Area A, B, and C.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), a total of 768 Palestinian structures in Area C and the occupied East Jerusalem have been demolished by Israel between January and November 2021.

*Writing by Bassel Barakat in Ankara

US to donate $99m in Palestinian aid to UN

December 31, 2021 

Palestinian teachers sit in front of the headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Refugees (UNRWA) in Gaza City during a general strike of employees in UNRWA institutions in the Palestinian strip, on November 29, 2021. [MOHAMMED ABED/AFP via Getty Images]

The United States (US) announced yesterday that it will donate $99 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), as the organisation suffers a major financial crisis.

According to the US State Department's Population, Refugees, and Migrations Bureau, the funds will "provide education, health care, and emergency relief to hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children and families during a time of need."

The organisation currently offers its services to about 5.3 million Palestinian refugees in the occupied territories, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

It has faced severe financial difficulties since the US administration of President Donald Trump stopped donations altogether in 2018. Though some of these funds have been reinstated, they have failed to fill the funding gap.

READ: Majority of UN members back war crimes probe against Israel

In an open letter last week, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said perennial budget shortfalls had forced the agency to introduce austerity measures, stretching the level of aid it could offer Palestinians to the limit.

"For close to a decade now, donor funding to the Agency has stagnated and remained below the amount needed to ensure the continuation of quality services. At the same time, the refugee population has continued to grow while poverty and vulnerabilities have skyrocketed. The financial crisis is of an existential nature," he said.

He added that the resumption of US funding was too little to make up for the deficit, with other donors pulling out.

The United Arab Emirates sharply reduced its funding of the body in 2020, an UNRWA spokesman revealed earlier this year. Sami Mshasha said that the UAE donated $51.8 million to UNRWA in 2018 and again in 2019, but in 2020 it gave the agency just $1 million.

Meanwhile the UK had more than halved its funds to UNRWA from £42.5 million ($57.2 million) in 2020 to £20.8 million ($28 million) in 2021. The UK was the third largest overall donor to UNRWA in 2020, but its latest cut puts it in the second tier of contributors.

Established in 1949 by the UN General Assembly, UNRWA mission is to help Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip achieve their full human development potential, pending a just and lasting solution to their plight.

How a Wartime Newspaper Article Changed Australia Forever

Sunday, 2 January, 2022 - 
Daniel Moss

Australian foreign policy was dramatically recast 80 years ago in ways that still reverberate today. It went hand-in-hand with a far-reaching overhaul of economic life, the contours of which lasted long enough to help drive a recovery from the pandemic recession. These wartime military and financial arrangements live on, in what detractors call an over-dependence on Washington and the Reserve Bank of Australia’s quantitative easing.

With Japanese troops marching down the Malayan Peninsula in the closing days of 1941 and Singapore soon to be overrun, Australia’s then-Prime Minister John Curtin abandoned the notion that the UK would be the island continent’s protector. The bedrock principle of security since the founding of a penal colony in the 18th century was jettisoned. Washington became the fulcrum around which defense and diplomacy was organized — architecture that shapes Australia today.

Asked to contribute an article to the Dec. 27 edition of the Melbourne Herald newspaper, Curtin wrote: “Without any inhibitions of any kind, I make it quite clear that Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom.” The column, titled “The Task Ahead,” also called for a revolution in Australian life to gear up industry and finance to meet the demands of the war.

John Edwards, author of the two-volume biography “John Curtin’s War,” spoke to me about what Curtin intended to convey in the remarks and how the sentiments came to be canonized in Australian history and politics. Edwards is a non-resident fellow at the Lowy Institute in Sydney. He worked as an adviser to former Prime Minister Paul Keating, was chief economist for Australia and New Zealand at HSBC Holdings Plc and served on the board of the Reserve Bank from 2011 to 2016.

Daniel Moss: You called “The Task Ahead” the most celebrated document in Australian foreign policy. Why was it so important?

John Edwards: The significance arose because of what happened subsequently. Turning to the United States had, at the time, a very limited validity. It was limited to the circumstances of World War II. The significance arose from postwar circumstances: The British exit from India, Malaya, Burma, the Middle East and the UK’s impoverishment. Britain’s entire role in the world changed. The Empire vanished and Australia found itself in a world of new nations where Britain was absent. Had the UK emerged from the war differently, Curtin’s remarks may have been just been another wartime speech.

The awkwardness and controversy the text created was not so much Australia turning to America, because Britain had already turned to America. The real annoyance to Britain in the article was its demand that Australia share with the US the direction of allied efforts in the Pacific, rather than going through the UK as imperial arrangements would have dictated. It was awkward for UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill as he was in Washington conferring with President Franklin D. Roosevelt on this very issue. Curtin demanded that the Pacific conflict be treated as a new war and a war of equal status to that waged against Germany, which was contrary to British policy, and the US approach as well.

DM: Is Australia as lopsidedly dependent on America now as the country was on the UK prior to 1941?

JE: Curtin didn’t intend such a shift. Publicly and privately, he urged Britain to return to the Indo-Pacific as a major presence. He wanted a big base for the UK reopened in Singapore after the war with a fleet to support it. He didn’t understand that what had happened temporarily was to become something permanent. In a certain sense it is true that Australian foreign policy and defense is driven by a fear of abandonment by the great powers. We are not comfortable in our own region unsupported by a large external security guarantor. It’s particularly pertinent today. We fear China’s defense capacity, the size of its economy, its regional ambitions and we have re-emphasized our links with the US and, in a limited sense, the UK.

Underlying your question is: Are we doing enough for our own defense? In a way, what we are doing is underrated. We are spending a little more than 2% of gross domestic product on defense. We have quite a formidable undersea and air defense and offense capacity. We have a small but efficient army. Despite the controversy over China, we do not have a threat. And it’s certainly not China, in an offensive sense. China does not have that capability or that intention. It’s not so much that we don’t do enough, but we wrongly imagine American interests are our own.

DM: This leads us to AUKUS — a trilateral security pact between Australia, the UK and the US — and the fracas a few months ago over abandoning the French-built diesel submarines for a deal on nuclear-powered subs. Can you draw a direct line between the debates in Australia in late 1941 and the sub accord?

JE: It’s evocative, but the circumstances are radically different. AUKUS ultimately gives us very little more than our existing defense understandings. It doesn’t add much to our treaty with the US or our understandings with the UK, other than the aspect of agreeing to Australian access to nuclear-propelled sub construction. It’s very, very specific. Were it to come to fruition — we are talking about a program that won’t be completed until 40 years hence — would it be a major addition to our defense capability? Nuke subs are designed for long distance offensive tasks that relate more to our alliance with US than our actual home defense needs.

DM: Curtin talked in his article about a “revolution” in society. What did he mean by that?

JE: Curtin was a bit of a scold at that point in his life. He was offended that Australians continued to go the races and drink beer and so forth. He was incensed by strikes on the waterfront and in coal mines. Curtin wanted a greater appreciation of the challenge Australia faced. He required a mobilized society in the same way that we have edged much closer to during the pandemic: Adherence to the rules in which behavior determined to be for the greater good is the rule. There are resonances with that rhetoric and what politicians have been saying over the last couple of years. Metaphorically, we often describe ourselves as being in a war against Covid. There are links in a kind of mental attitude. But I wonder whether they will be any more permanent this time than during an actual war? People do revert pretty quickly to what they wish.

DM: Curtin overhauled the tax system and central banking during the war. Did he lay the ground for the modern Australian economy?

JE: This was, in a sense, the real revolution that Curtin wrought. Prior to Curtin, the central bank, which was then the Commonwealth Bank, had quite limited powers, limited authority and a limited vision of how it would use those powers. With his treasurer, Ben Chifley, Curtin brought in legislative changes that created a true central bank. More or less, with some organizational and structural changes, it has the same authority over financial institutions as the Reserve Bank today exercises. In fiscal policy, we rely on another wartime innovation that became permanent. That was the effective monopolization of personal income tax and company tax by the federal government. It gave Canberra great revenue and spending power that Curtin’s successors never saw fit to reverse.

DM: Has this federal authority been eroded by Covid? The state governments appear to have been ascendant, establishing their own rules.

JE: It’s true the federal government has had to fight to get its way. On the other hand, our recovery has depended on the RBA and the federal government. We moved from near-balanced budget to the biggest deficit. We have gone from a position where the RBA wouldn’t contemplate buying government debt to one where it is a major bond holder. The exercise of those powers, won by Curtin, has supported our economic resilience and recovery today.


Bloomberg

Trump Endorses Viktor Orbán, His Hungarian Role Model
By Ed Kilgore

Trump’s latest 2022 endorsee. Photo: Laszlo Balogh/Getty Images

Donald Trump has focused a lot of his energies lately on endorsing 2022 candidates for office, particularly in disputed Republican primaries where he can create a Trumpier-than-thou competition or settle old grudges with past detractors. It sometimes seems not a sparrow falls to the ground in GOP politics without the 45th president viewing the development narcissistically and interpreting it in terms of his own preoccupations.

But Trump’s latest endorsement on Monday shows him reaching pretty far:

Viktor Orbán of Hungary truly loves his Country and wants safety for his people. He has done a powerful and wonderful job in protecting Hungary, stopping illegal immigration, creating jobs, trade, and should be allowed to continue to do so in the upcoming Election. He is a strong leader and respected by all. He has my Complete support and Endorsement for reelection as Prime Minister!

Now given Trump’s well-known affinity for political strongmen, this may seem like a dog-bites-Hungarian story. But viewed historically, it’s very unusual, to put it mildly. Sure, presidents make nice with other heads of state in furtherance of foreign policy interests and as a matter of diplomatic protocol, as do former presidents and future presidential aspirants. And in the Cold War era, U.S. leaders often snuggled up to evil people who shared their antipathy toward communists. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had headed up the allied war effort in World War II, got buddy-buddy with Spain’s Francisco Franco, who not only killed an awful lot of innocent people and enslaved many more, but also sent troops (allegedly “volunteers”) to fight for Hitler on the Eastern Front.

Ike and Franco, 1959. Photo: Alamy

Anti-communist solidarity was also the ostensible reason for chumminess between the Nixon and Ford administrations and Chile’s murderous dictator Augusto Pinochet, as well as Reagan’s stubborn support for the apartheid regime in South Africa. In the latter case, Reagan may have also been currying favor with the southern white racists he was luring into the GOP at the time. That’s another rationale for American elected officials picking favorites in other countries’ political battles: a desire to pander to domestic constituencies. For many years pols in northeastern cities were tutored to express love for the “three I’s” — Ireland, Italy and Israel.

Occasionally U.S. leaders have such an obvious ideological and temperamental kinship with a particular foreign leader (e.g., Ronald Reagan with Margaret Thatcher or Bill Clinton with Tony Blair) that they can be described as strong political allies. That may largely explain Trump’s much-professed affection for Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, a similarly fiery and erratic Cult of Personality figure who will almost certainly be the next foreign beneficiary of an explicit Trump endorsement. But in Orbán’s case, the scary thing is that Trump’s admiration of the Hungarian apostle of “illiberal democracy” is most clearly aspirational. As my colleague Jonathan Chait put it a couple of years ago, Orbán is what Trump dreams to become.

Like Trump, Orbán came to power democratically, and his regime still holds elections. But the Hungarian leader is a wizard at giving himself authoritarian powers that distort democracy into something very dissimilar, much like the heads-I-win tails-you-lose system Trump transparently favors where his manifest greatness cannot be legitimately repudiated.

So in Orbán’s Fidesz Party we see Trump’s vision for the GOP: a populist model featuring Christian nationalism seasoned with racism and xenophobia, endless attacks on “globalist elites,” and an ever-heavier thumb on the electoral scales. The only apparent domestic constituency for Orbán-mania is among the right-wing intellectuals seeking to develop a full-scale MAGA ideology, led by the pseudo-intellectual Fox News gabber Tucker Carlson, who in August spent an entire week hosting his show from Budapest.

Adulation for a right-wing authoritarian, central-European Big Man is quite unseemly for Americans with any sense of history. In 2017, former president Barack Obama endorsed the French presidential candidacy of Emmanuel Macron in what was ostensibly a step as unusual as Trump’s. But it really wasn’t the same: Obama has zero future in public office, and Macron was facing right-wing nationalist Marine Le Pen, who is an ideological cousin to Orbán and to Trump.

Unlike Obama, Trump is not a retired politician who has been liberated from the usual rules about interfering in other people’s political business. And clearly Orbán doesn’t need his help in hanging onto power for the immediate future. So we can best understand Trump’s endorsement of his Beau Ideal on the Danube as yet another mirror in which can be discerned another image of the endlessly self-regarding Man Who Would Be King. It’s worth pondering, since a second Trump administration — this one without the disciplinary limitations that come with having to face reelection — is now by some accounts a better-than-even bet.