[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
#1
"Finding the money" ....that's usually the uncomfortable segment.
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.
THE GREATEST STORY NEVER TOLD. The U.S. poverty rate just hit an all-of-history low. American households recorded their highest real median income in history.
It gets better. 975,000 new jobs were created JUST in August and September 2026, according to the latest household survey. That's nearly a million more Americans working in just two months.
And we're supposed to believe Trump's economy is a disaster?
Official child poverty fell to just 13.4 percent, its lowest recorded rate. And that's before we even talk about violent crime dropping to its lowest rate since 1900: that's a BIG quality of life improvement, especially for children in inner cities.
Trump changed the incentives for investment. His tax law made immediate expensing permanent for qualifying equipment. A business can deduct the full cost when it puts that equipment to work.
That makes buying better tools more attractive. Better tools let a worker produce more in the same hour. A company that can profitably expand hires MORE people, not less, and competing employers give those people more bargaining power and higher wages.
Your boss's ability to make money has everything to do with his ability to pay you more. Treat profits as an offense and you'll quickly lose the expansion, the hiring, and the raises those profits could finance.
That's why Barack Obama's "you didn't build that" economy hit just 1.6% annual GDP growth, while Trump's is clocking in at 3.4% and rising.
And the things those workers produce are how supply catches up with demand, and how eventually, prices fall. Like they do for televisions.
If Americans need more energy, produce more energy. If they need more goods, let companies build the factories that make them. Delaying a plant doesn't abolish demand for what it would produce. It sends the order somewhere else, and the job to Mexico or China.
A family paying too much for necessities needs more supply and higher earnings. How does it help that family by making American production harder?
But Trump tackled the bottom end too. No taxes on tips. No taxes on overtime (and there's a LOT of overtime coming as the expansion accelerates). And FINALLY, no taxes on almost everyone's Social Security benefits.
Government should serve everyone, from top to bottom. Trump's does.
Democrats want to campaign against corporate profits while workers need the jobs, investment, and productivity those profits make possible. They want to talk about "affordability" after printing money for four years and closing countless refineries that produce our gas.
@larry_kudlow calls this the greatest story never told. So go tell it. People have no idea. Because the Enemedia lies nonstop. They're just an arm of the Democrats' campaign.
Tell your friends what real income means. Explain why investment matters to their paychecks. Show them that more production is how we make the things they need more affordable.
And tell them the extraordinary progress we're making. It was never going to happen all at once. You wouldn't go to the gym and immediately look shredded.
But it's happening. Now.
Tell our story. Vote. Help your friends go vote. Put them in your car and take them.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited See Day 1 here. See today also this today. by Kristina Ismagilova
[Regnum] 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.
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."
Posted by: badanov ||
11/01/2026 00:00 ||
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[37 views]
Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life,
[Townhall] Confidence is an important factor in any election — candidates need to project it, and supporters need to feel it for morale purposes to help them get across the finish line. Democrats had all the confidence in the world a month ago...but it’s not a month ago anymore. In the closing two weeks of the 2026 midterms, Democrats have begun to act like people concerned that they’re going to lose.
In Alaska, Democrats were always worried about losing — it’s Alaska, after all. That’s why they cooked up this stupid "Find another Dan Sullivan" scam to confuse just enough voters to get into the second round of ranked-choice voting.
Democrat Mary Peltola’s campaign sought out another Sullivan — seeking a "white man" to help save a "woman of color" to win a Senate seat. When the Bible of the left, the New York Times, broke the story that the Peltola campaign was not only involved, but conceived of the idea, it undercut the last six months when they’d vocally and actively denied having anything to do with it.
Rather than cut bait, admit the unquestioned and obvious truth, and try to move past it as quickly as possible, they’re still denying it and hoping it fades. But hope isn’t a strategy.
[Jpost] Israel’s offensive strategy has sharply reduced terrorism in Judea and Samaria, bolstering the case for tough action against its enemies.
Israel’s geostrategic successes since the October 7 massacre are beyond debate.
The defiant yellow-flag-draped tent Hezbollah set up on Israeli territory has been replaced by IDF strongholds in Lebanese territory that a cowed Hezbollah is compelled to accept.
Iran, Israel’s major foe, not only suffered the brunt of two campaigns, the first Israeli-made, the second jointly with the US, but, equally if not more importantly, lost its crown jewel, the Assad regime in Syria, in its grand strategy to lay permanent siege to Israel through a ring of missile-firing proxies.
Arab commentators are almost unanimous in attributing this outcome to the blows Israel dealt to Hezbollah, the Assad regime’s major defender against the jihadists in northern Syria whom the Turks supported.
In Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... , one has only to recall where Israel stood not only on the morrow of October 7, but even after the killing of Border Police marksman Barel Hadaria Shmueli, at point-blank range on the Gaza fence in 2020. The assailant, Muhammad Maher Abu Jisr, fled unscathed, took part in the massacre, and was only killed in 2024.
In utter contrast, the IDF, which controls 60% of Gaza, has killed, over the past half year, hundreds of terrorists, including two Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... chief-of-staff commanders, and kidnapped two key Hamas Lions of Islam in broad daylight (achievements not witnessed since Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005), to which Hamas is too weak to respond.
Politically, contrary to the assessment of many, Hamas leaders publicly clamor for the Paleostinian administrative agency, presently in Cairo, to enter Gaza, despite being part of a peace plan promoted by US President Donald Trump ...Oh, noze! Not him!... , a foe of the organization, and manned mostly by technocrats linked to Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase....> , their major domestic enemy.
ISRAEL SEES SHARP DECLINE IN TERROR ATTACK CASUALTIES
Thanks be to God and the IDF. (And Mossad and Shin Bet, and others I don’t know the names of.)
However impressive these achievements are, they pale in comparison to what has occurred in Judea and Samaria, where the level of terrorism in the past year has declined to a level not seen since before the First Intifada in 1987.
Six Israelis have been killed so far this year [in Judea and Samaria], compared to 46 and 43 Israelis killed in 2024 and 2023, respectively. The number of maimed from terrorist attacks dropped by 42% from 2024 to 2025 alone.
Six Israelis have been killed so far this year, compared to 46 and 43 Israelis killed in 2024 and 2023, respectively. The number of maimed from terrorist attacks dropped by 42% from 2024 to 2025 alone.
The reasons for this sharp decline are easily identifiable.
The most important by far is a radical change in counterterrorism strategy that began in 2024 — a change from daily and mostly nightly incursions, since 2002, into all areas of the PA to make preventive arrests to prevent these areas from becoming a sanctuary zone, as they became in the first eight years of the PA, to a strategy of permanently occupying the large refugee camps in Jenin, Tulkarm, and Nablus, where the Lions of Islam were concentrated and organized in local, rudimentary, battalion-level units.
In the course of occupying these camps and the relocation of many of its inhabitants, these units were systematically destroyed, almost to the last man.
Israel’s iron-fist policies, including shooting at rock-throwers, increased the costs to would-be terrorists, an important second factor in reducing terrorism.
Incidentally, reducing Paleostinian terrorism also means a reduction of Paleostinian casualties.
Finally, Hamas spokesmen have also acknowledged that harsher conditions imposed in Israeli prisons in the past three years have had a dampening effect on Hamas recruitment.
Developments in Judea and Samaria have also been mirrored in Jerusalem, with its large Arab population.
Political violence in Jerusalem has always been exaggerated by the Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... -led and Qatar-financed media. In fact, political violence in Jerusalem over the past 30 years averages out to below the crime levels of the average city in the United States and many European cities.
What gives the impression of an incendiary city are the very short spikes of political violence, the last of which was in 2021. Since then, the level of violence (political and criminal) in Jerusalem places it on par with Oslo, at fewer than two homicides per 100,000. In 2026, only one Israeli citizen was slightly maimed in a terrorist event in the city.
Strategic and tactical success in Judea and Samaria and elsewhere has not come at the cost of maintaining the peace accords. None of the countries that have signed peace or normalization agreements with Israel — Egypt, the UAE, Jordan, Morocco, and Bahrain — have abrogated their treaties with Israel, and channels to Arab states, most notably, Saudi Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start... , have remained open.
Where Israel has certainly suffered — in world opinion, and worrisomely so in the United States — has to do with the presumed genocide Israel allegedly carried out in Gaza, from which it totally withdrew in 2005 after dismantling all Israeli settlements.
Ironically, where Israel made the most concessions and suffered a massacre to boot, it has drawn the most opprobrium.
Front after front, but most noticeably in Judea and Samaria, proves the sagacity of the tough offensive action against Israel’s enemies — the incumbent government’s basic template since the October 7 massacre.
This is hardly a lesson recently learned. It was a series of wars that compelled Egypt to make peace with Israel — by far Israel’s greatest achievement in the region — and only the judicious use of force will achieve peace in the future.
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
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
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
dominated Mexico for six years.
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.
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start...
