[ConservativeTreehouse] Remember when former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told President Trump the Canadian government could not continue its economic policy if the United States demanded they become self-sufficient.
One of the key reasons cited by Trudeau was the Canadian dependence on the USA for defense. Canada simply could not spend the amount of money needed to create their own military at a level required for independent defense and simultaneously follow their govt spending plan. Canada relied on the U.S. military as their defense strategy.
Yesterday, former British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the same thing; only this time Starmer was saying the United States is no longer willing to “bankroll” Europe’s defense and both the U.K and European Union were going to need to find money to build their own military.
Posted by: NoMoreBS ||
11/01/2026 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics.
[ColonelCassad] The hack of the Binance crypto exchange, which lost nearly $6 billion, caused markets around the world to collapse. The total loss in one day exceeded $3 trillion.
A healthy financial system is immediately apparent.
Also: the EU is scraping the last of its diesel reserves. It will allocate 42.6 million barrels of oil from its strategic reserves to stabilize the diesel market before the onset of winter.
EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jorgensen stated that maximum efforts are being made to stabilize the diesel fuel situation. However, he warned that EU countries are facing a "tough winter" due to high prices for gas and oil products. Europeans will have to choose between food and heating this winter, said EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jorgensen.
Around 50 million Europeans are experiencing difficulties paying their utility bills.
It can be expected that after the midterm elections, Trump will, one way or another, continue dumping fuel from strategic reserves, which have already fallen to 1982 levels, onto the market over the next 3-6 months.
A new round of aggression against Iran could seriously accelerate these processes in both Europe and the US.
by Kristina Ismagilova
That night, the noise in the Polish capital was as loud as during a full-fledged coup d'état—the presidential plane turning over Africa, the buzzing of power tools at the fence of the Constitutional Tribunal, and hand-to-hand combat at its door.
And by morning - locked offices, confused police in a cordon and two judges, each of whom considers his neighbor an impostor.
On the evening of October 30, Judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska announced a month-long recess in the duties of Constitutional Tribunal President Bohdan Święczkowski and his deputy, Bartłomiej Sochański. She also announced that she was assuming leadership of the Tribunal as the judge with the longest judicial experience; this announcement was published on the institution's website.
Formally, the issue was not about the final termination of their judicial mandates or the appointment of a new permanent chairman, but about their temporary suspension from work—a difference that is essential for the entire subsequent legal structure.
At the same time, Justice Minister and Prosecutor General Waldemar Żurek announced the submission of five motions to lift immunity: four against Święczkowski and one against Sochanski. However, no matter how many motions were filed, they did not result in any guilty verdicts or even the lifting of immunity—the prosecutor's office is merely requesting permission to continue the criminal prosecution.
Police appeared near the Tribunal building in the evening, and reports of an assault began circulating. However, law enforcement officials claim they were ensuring security in the surrounding area and did not enter the building. Claims of arrests have also been unsubstantiated.
However, a representative of the previous leadership, Veronika Scibor, stated that the seven judges elected by the current Seimas entered the building together with employees of the State Security Service, and the Tribunal's security was ordered to leave.
Battle for the Tribunal
The conflict didn't begin on Friday. After the Law and Justice (PiS) party came to power in 2015, it gained control of the Tribunal; one of the central violations was the election of three judges to seats already legally filled by decisions of the previous parliament.
European courts subsequently questioned the Tribunal's ability to function as an independent and impartial court, and Prime Minister Donald Tusk's government used these decisions as grounds for not publishing its rulings.
Thus, long before the nighttime clash, one part of the state influenced the decisions of this body, while the other refused to recognize them. The new parliamentary coalition could change its personnel as vacancies arose, but it did not automatically gain control over its leadership or presidential approval for its interpretation of procedures.
In March, the current Sejm elected six judges, but President Karol Nawrocki refused to swear in four of them. A similar dispute then arose over Maciej Berek, who was elected in September. Ultimately, five of them took the oath of office without the president's physical presence—in the presence of Sejm Speaker Włodzimierz Czażasty —and Speaker Święczkowski prevented them from working.
There's a long-standing dispute over who wields power. If the president has the right to withhold the oath of office from a judge indefinitely, he effectively gains the power to block the candidate elected by the Seimas. If parliament can complete the procedure without the president, the president effectively loses the right to vote, merely formally approving the judge.
Those initiating the leadership change cited Article 130 of the Law on the Organization of General Courts, which allows, under certain circumstances, the immediate suspension of a judge's official duties for up to a month. The applicability of this provision to Constitutional Tribunal judges was justified by a chain of references through legislation on their status and on the Supreme Court.
The reasons cited included the denial of access to elected judges, the disputed formation of panels to hear cases, and the blocking of a general meeting required to approve the Tribunal's draft budget for 2027. Korwin-Piotrowska scheduled such a meeting for November 3, citing the need to integrate into the ongoing parliamentary budget approval process.
The result is a cumbersome structure, raising questions at every turn. First, the authority of judges sworn in without the president must be recognized. Then, the possibility of extending the rule regarding general courts to the leadership of the Tribunal. After that, the authority of a specific individual to remove the chairperson and deputy chairperson. And finally, Korvin-Piotrovskaya's own grounds for governing the judicial body must be established.
This is precisely the case where the sequence of actions affects the legality of the result: you cannot consider the management to have been legally removed and then declare your own powers, which were initially needed to remove competitors.
Moreover, objections are not only coming from PiS. Marcin Matczak, a consistent critic of previous judicial reforms, stated that he sees no legal basis for removing Święczkowski in this manner, although he considers him extremely unsuitable as president. Former Tribunal President Jerzy Stępień, on the contrary, tentatively acknowledged the existence of formal grounds, stipulating the need for analysis.
Describing what happened as the unquestionable fulfillment of a clear norm seems too convenient. But at the same time, the word "coup" uttered by an opposition politician is no substitute for legally establishing the elements of a crime.
Who's on whose side?
Upon learning of the conflict's escalation, Nawrocki, who was en route to Senegal, turned his plane around and returned to Warsaw. Media reports claimed that the president held talks with the US administration during the flight. Before traveling to the Tribunal, he met with the first President of the Supreme Court, Zbigniew Kapiński, and subsequently cited Kapiński's agreement with the assessment of the events as illegal.
Which could have ended with a statement of facts: the previous leadership is dysfunctional, the new one is in charge of the building, the police are maintaining order, and the president is protesting from abroad. But Navrotsky's dramatic appearance prevented such a conclusion.
True, a scuffle broke out at the entrance, for which the parties gave conflicting explanations: Judge Berek claimed that Navrotsky himself began pushing his way through the judges standing at the door, while the presidential camp presented the recordings as evidence of unacceptable treatment of the head of state.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk, considered the main instigator of the incident, called the attempted judicial overhaul "the restoration of the rule of law" after the PiS government and declared that "there is no other way." Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski echoed his colleague, noting that "the Tribunal was politicized under the previous (PiS) government."
According to him, "measures had to be taken" because Svenchkovsky "blocked the judges' work": he didn't convene meetings, prevented them from making decisions, interpreting laws, or even adopting their own budget for the following year. Korvin-Piotrovska literally "had to start working as the most senior judge."
The prime minister's ally and Minister of Justice, Żurek, explained the need for criminal prosecution by "preventing judges from working." Back in mid-October, he publicly stated that he saw no possibility of a compromise with Święczkowski. This crucial detail—Friday's operation—followed a public admission of the current chairman's inability to compromise.
On the other side, Zbigniew Ziobro, the former justice minister persecuted by the Tusk government, called the events a "criminal assault on the constitutional order" and called for resistance. PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński demanded that the president use legal powers to stop the unrest.
Former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki spoke of the unacceptability of "Belarusian methods," while Sławomir Mentzen of the right-wing Confederation party demanded a nighttime meeting of the National Security Council. His colleague, Krzysztof Bosak, stated: "The same thing happened in Germany on the eve of World War II."
Grzegorz Braun, head of the Confederation of the Polish Crown and known for his radical statements, also made a significant appearance. Addressing the crowd outside the court, he addressed the army, police, and security services: "I call on Poles, and I emphasize, Poles in the uniform of the Polish police, to remain true to their oaths. I call on soldiers of the Polish army, members of the secret services, and others. If you are Poles and not 'Euro-collective farmers,' be true to your oaths."
The gathering of all these forces does not yet indicate a stable political unification, but it provides grounds for cooperation "at a low cost": defending the Tribunal is easier than coordinating an economic program or distributing ministerial portfolios.
The former presidents also disagreed. Andrzej Duda strongly condemned the interference and pointed out that using force against constitutional bodies is a criminal offense. Lech Wałęsa, on the other hand, declared his support for Tusk.
Adrian Zandberg, leader of the left-wing Razem party, spoke separately : he proposed either restarting the Tribunal on the basis of a constitutional majority, eliminating its capture by one party, or discussing a different system of constitutional review.
And for Nawrocki, this latest statement is potentially more useful than yet another accusation of Tusk's coup. It demonstrates that the idea of changing the rules extends beyond the right-wing camp.
The international reaction was also mixed: Nigel Farage and Geert Wilders harshly criticized the government, while US Ambassador Thomas Rose emphasized the conflicting narratives, called for avoiding escalation, and specifically stipulated non-interference in Poland's internal affairs. Portraying the American reaction as an endorsement of the actions of one camp or another would be a stretch.
Main beneficiaries
In a statement read before his departure, Nawrocki demanded the restoration of legal order and the withdrawal of government forces. Announcing consultations with parliamentary representatives, he cited the threat to internal security.
But the statement did not automatically overturn Korvin-Piotrovskaya's decisions. The following morning, neither a bipartisan consensus nor an agreed-upon procedure for resolving the crisis was announced. The next announced steps are presidential consultations and a general meeting of judges on November 3.
This means that the military resolution that night never took place, and the legal one was postponed. A significant result is that the dispute has been escalated to a new level: now it's necessary to discuss not only the admission of individual judges, but also the legality of the interim management, the budget adoption, and the Tribunal's future decisions.
The president's self-appointment as guarantor of the Constitution does not grant Navrotsky unlimited power of intervention: Article 126 requires him to act within the powers established by the Constitution and laws. The consultative formats he convenes also do not constitute an alternative government—these limitations are directly related to the Constitution.
Hence his practical choice: either seek agreement within the existing rules, or use the inability to reach an agreement as an argument for changing the rules themselves.
And thus, the main beneficiary of the conflict can now be identified. Before the crisis, Navrotsky had to explain why he undertook to rewrite the Constitution, but now he can claim that the current system doesn't even allow for determining who is legitimately in charge of the constitutional review body.
It's a strong political argument, but even if his opponents don't allow the idea to move forward, Nawrocki could act as an organizer of a broader agreement.
The president could offer a package: regulating the status of judges, a new procedure for forming the Tribunal, limiting party control, and a clearer division of powers. An expanded presidential role could be included in such a package as part of the exchange, rather than as a separate demand for more power for Navrotsky.
Moreover, Nawrocki could become the main leader of the entire Polish right, offering them not just to push Tusk from power, but to build a “new Poland” under his leadership.
But the disgraced prime minister also benefits: he can present the mobilization of the right—Kaczyński, Mentzen, and Braun—as a model for the future right-wing majority and demonstrate to his supporters the transition from promises of judicial change to action.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk
The crisis could simultaneously strengthen two opposing camps without bringing a constitutional compromise closer.
In any case, the parliamentary arithmetic still remains between a political initiative and a new Constitution. Amendments require a two-thirds vote in the Sejm, with a quorum, and an absolute majority in the Senate; with all 460 members present, that's 307 votes. A simple majority is not enough to form a government.
And here, a referendum won't be a way to circumvent this order. Consequently, a crisis could increase public demand for reform, but it won't replace the votes needed by the parties. Two realistic options are possible: a limited cross-party agreement on the judicial system, or a significantly more difficult attempt to secure a majority after the elections to change the entire system.
The Warsaw Night provides additional grounds for a narrow reform of the Tribunal: the absence of a mutually recognized arbitrator has become impossible to ignore. As part of the transition to a stronger presidency, it gives Nawrocki an argument and a reason to begin bargaining, but not an unambiguous "green light."
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
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Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
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Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
