I find it plausible that Orbán and the average Orbán voter sees the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a godsent opportunity for Hungarian revanchism on parts of Ukrainian territory.

Yep, the USA likes to complain about Europe being security freeloaders, but the only member to ever invoke Article 5 was the USA.

Yeah all governments have a tendency to sweep problems under the rug, but Japan are a whole other level.

Nah, photos show a white guy. He probably had memes on his phone or sassed an ICE agent.

Every time somebody tries to bring up the “America is just as bad as Russia” argument, I like to look at and compare South Korea vs North Korea and West Germany vs East Germany. We basically have proof that America isn’t trying to conquer the world. It practices catch and release.

America’s done lots of horrible things but Russia seems to ONLY do horrible things. America helped Japan rebuild and then gave it its freedom again. Russia still refuses to let go of Southern Chishima. America is not as bad as Russia.

Having said all that, I would prefer if NEITHER of them were global hegemon.

If we ever actually pass that bill. The OTB or some version of it has been on the table for most of a decade, and the cabinet keeps rejecting it. I see no reason why they’d grow a spine now.

I mean, would we expect anything else?

Orbán does just enough for farmers to keep them voting for him. Keeping Ukraine out of the EU is part of that - if Ukraine were a member, Hungarian wheat prices would plummet.

What makes you think they will?

Well, duh.

Trump is out of his depth

Ehehehe

Ah yes, I hadn’t intended that part to be considered a continuation of the Columbus point. “Sometimes idiots like Columbus get things done that nobody else was gonna do because everybody else understands just how monumental the task actually is and are deterred from doing it” is a separate point from “often even when a project was more trouble, time and effort than bargained for, it’s still worth it”. My apologies for the confusion. I’ve edited my other comment to make it clearer on that score.

Irish man here; I’ve never been to a funeral that was open casket but I’ve also never been to a removal that wasn’t.

True, but sometimes the only way something worthwhile ever gets done in the first place is because somebody started on it without realizing how hard it would be. Columbus only discovered the New World because he’d underestimated how far away from Asia he was. Sometimes you NEED an optimistic idiot to actually get something done. Nobody else wanted to sail west because they (correctly) assessed that the Earth was bigger than Columbus thought, and it was only blind luck that Columbus encountered an unknown continent before running out of supplies. So an idiot was necessary.

And (as a separate point) yes, when an idiot embarks on an overly-optimistic project it’s a pain in the ass for everyone else who has to clean up the mess, but often the achievement lasts a lot longer and outweighs the trouble by orders of magnitude. For example the Moon landing ended up costing ten times what was originally budgeted, but I’d still say it was worth it.

I repeat: kidnapping?

I’m glad we have you to tell us what is and isn’t culture worth preserving; we were at real risk of having a diversity of opinion for a moment there.

Kidnapping?

Obama’s been gone almost a decade at this point and we still have yet to pass this bill because the government always backs down at the last minute in the face of threats from the US that it would “force” US companies to not do business with us. The Dáil (parliament) supports the bill but the cabinet shoots it down. So you’re not wrong to be cynical, but every time Israel commits some fresh outrage the pressure grows for the government to pass it or risk losing the next election.

To be specific, Ireland isn’t in Schengen because the UK isn’t in Schengen and we’re trying to keep the border as non-bordery as possible.

Note: by having the USA abstain from that UN vote right at the end of his presidency, Obama made it possible (ie legal) for us to do this.

If we were targeting Israel specifically, we would run afoul of all sorts of EU regulations since external trade policy falls under EU competency. HOWEVER, because there is a UN resolution specifically identifying the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories as illegal occuptions under international law, it’s possible for us to pass a law that doesn’t specifically target Israel by name, but rather target any territory that is illegally occupied.

If Brussels takes issue with the ban and tries to fine us for some trumped-up reason like arguing that we’re exceeding our reserved competencies, that would initiate legal proceedings which would give us standing to counter and argue that we are only meeting our international obligations as outlined by the UN, and furthermore that the EU-Israel trade deal has a boilerplate clause requiring Israel to meet certain human rights criteria or the entire trade deal goes kaput.

Basically if the EU takes us to court over this, we’ll be able to force the argument to be over whether Israel is violating human rights, at which point (because judges are not politicians) the court will almost certainly side with us, which would THEN put Brussels into the legal position where they’re OBLIGED to ban these goods EU-wide.

Because Brussels knows this, they’re likely to try and avoid initiating proceedings, turning a blind eye. However a lack of consequences for us would embolden other EU members to copy us. Basically it’s a rock and a hard place for Brussels.

Just pointing this out so that people see that UN votes DO matter.