The Conservative Cave

Poland has a Constitutional Tribunal, which works roughly like our Supreme Court. Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s pro-EU government called the court illegitimate because the conservative Law and Justice party (PiS) packed it with conservatives back in 2015. So his government simply stopped publishing the court’s rulings, even though Polish law requires it.

This year, parliament elected new leftwing judges. President Karol Nawrocki, a PiS ally who holds the veto, refused to swear five of them in. Without the president’s oath, Polish law says they aren’t judges yet.

Last night, while President Nawrocki was out of the country, Donald Tusk’s justice minister, Waldemar Żurek, moved to criminally charge the court’s conservative chief justice, Bogdan Święczkowski, by lifting his official immunity. Seven of the not-yet-sworn judges walked into the Tribunal under government security escort, and the court’s own guards were told to leave.

One of the new judges, Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, declared herself the court’s most senior judge, by counting her years from 1995 in the ordinary courts, not from any time on the Tribunal. On that basis, she suspended the chief justice and his deputy for a month. Riot police ringed the building and the new judges took over the court’s website. The court’s X account, still run by the old leadership, posted that everyone involved was “committing the crime of a coup d’état.”

When it all went down, President Nawrocki was flying to Senegal. He posted, “At such a moment, the President must be in Poland. I’m interrupting my flight,” and flew back. Just after midnight, he went to the Tribunal with the head of the Supreme Court, cut a padlock on the Tribunal’s front fence with a power saw, pushed through the police at the door, and told the new judges, “You are not judges.” Before dawn, he called it a “forcible takeover of a constitutional organ of the state” and convened emergency security talks for today.

InfantryDort @infantrydort
And now we understand the absolutely rabid obsession with destroying Pete Hegseth.

I've been in the Army since before 9/11. Served under many secretaries.

Only in the past 18 months have I experienced:

>politicians warning me not to follow illegal orders
>billboards outside military bases telling me to report war crimes
>the media attacking anyone who has a positive thing to say about the man, and defending anyone who hates him
>stunning volume of leaks from senior officials trying to undermine him, and the lionizing of the leakers by the press
>being called a war criminal myself, hundreds of times a day
>a sustained media narrative portraying virtually every firing or senior officer removal as a "purge"
>public efforts by retired officers, advocacy groups, and political figures to mobilize service members and military communities against administration policies
>influential "Americans" publicly cheering for Iran

This is just to name a few. I've NEVER experienced anything like this before. And it's becoming abundantly clear that the concerted effort to divide the military from within was stunted when Hegseth took over. Anyone desiring color revolution needs control of the military. That's color revolution 101.

Is it starting to make sense yet? Now you see the obsession over him in particular. It's not a coincidence. And it damn sure isn't because of his culture war.

It's because by all objective metrics, he runs a military that snatches rogue leaders from their beds, destroys entire militaries, and successfully mobilizes assets to save one downed pilot in the middle of enemy territory by building an Air Force base... in the middle of enemy territory. Secures the border, dominates the hemisphere. Hunts drug cartels. The list goes on.

He is by all meaningful accounts, effective at wielding the machine. And that is why they drool at the thought of removing him.

In years past you'd be hard pressed to find a junior Soldier who knew the name of the cabinet secretary above them.

Every one of them knows Pete Hegseth.

Every one.

Ocelot II (134,028 posts)
9. I could barely be in the same room with one.