Zbigniew Ziobro has been summoned four times to appear before the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry into Pegasus and has failed to appear even once. Ziobro may think otherwise, but appearing before the parliamentary committee is his bloody duty as a citizen. If Donald Tusk, as President of the European Council, could appear before the committee on Amber Gold, then Ziobro, as an ordinary MP, could appear before this committee. He took sick leave twice and then just straight up played truant. He simply did not want to come.

The order to call in the police is a normal prerogative of parliamentary committees, designed precisely for such cases. Without such tools, the whole idea of a committee could be killed because everyone would refuse and that's it. The law says that if you are summoned, you come. Ziobro is not above the law.

There is nothing extraordinary about the court (the court, not Tusk, Bodnar or Trzaskowski) issuing an order to bring Ziobro in after four failures to appear. This is a normal, standard legal procedure that would be applied to others. It's just that others appeared.

Ziobro believes that he is not obliged to appear before the Commission because it is unconstitutional. He believes this because the Przyłębska Tribunal, which is not a court, said so. At this point I would like to remind you that the "judgments" of the PT are ignored not only by the present government, but also by PiS. Julia Przyłębska's "judgments" no longer concern anyone, nor does the entire PT. Poland has been deprived of the Constitutional Tribunal for several years. This "judgement" is worth as much as the rest of the PT's mass production - nothing. The Commission is working and those summoned should appear before it.

Ziobro deliberately created a situation in order to make himself the victim of the "regime of the smiling Poland". The circus that took place yesterday was not staged by the government, but by Ziobro and employees of the PiS-affiliated Republika who identify themselves as journalists.

Ziobro knew exactly what time he had to be at the Sejm, and yet he scheduled an interview with TV Republika for that exact time. When the police arrived, the station's "journalists" closed the blinds and wouldn't let them in. They put on a show in front of the cameras about a "siege", "regime attack" and the like, then... politely opened the blinds and handed Ziobro over to the police. Then... they made another show of chasing the car that was taking him away (Michał Rachoń, thanks for the great meme templates, I would have laughed if it wasn't so embarrassing).

So, according to the Republika's logic, an innocent man was handed over to the regime's thugs, who knows if they won't torture him in that car. Either Sakiewicz and others were brazenly playing with the former minister's life, or they knew full well that nothing would happen to him and were playing a game meant to deceive:

• Their constituents
• Undecided voters
• Elon Musk and Donald Trump

My subjective opinion is that this Great Defence, during which unironic stories of police persecution were told, was one of the most cringy events of recent months, and the competition was great.

Ziobro was taken to the Sejm (a few minutes' drive from the new Republika studio), where the committee was still debating. When Ziobro was already in the building, the committee made a bizarre decision to interrupt the debate and use another tool against Ziobro: 30 days' detention. First the Sejm has to lift his immunity, which will of course take some time.

If there was a cunning plan behind the Commission's decision, I don't see it. Ziobro was literally in the same building, he should have been questioned. I think the decision was wrong and unnecessary. But this decision does not change anything in any of the above points.

The above does not change the fact that it is not Ziobro who decides when and for what he will appear. Just as it is not up to every Kowalski to decide whether to appear for questioning in the case of a stolen car. There is a law and we enforce it, even if the perpetrator has a Polsat passport.

In the end, Ziobro and other PiS members took pictures of themselves with pancakes, Matecki shouted at everyone he could, and the right wing had a collective faecal incident that a great victory had been achieved.

Some pundits, not only on the right, claim that the mighty Ziobro is outwitting the state, ridiculing the services, twisting them as he pleases, beating them at chess and so on. In essence, they are saying that a man suspected of gross violations of the law, who refuses to appear for questioning at his whim, is not showing cynicism and lack of morality, but some unspecified cunning. And that this is a kind of victory for him. According to this logic, any criminal who simply runs away from the police, does not report for supervision, does not pay the fine imposed, etc., is a cunning winner. Well, we have wonderful authorities.

If Ziobro is playing anyone here, it is some journalists who fall for his theatrics a little too easily.

Amen.

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Most people already understand how tariffs function like a sales tax, and increase the cost of all items covered from food to clothes to construction materials. Tariffs of 25% with our closest allies and trading partners, Mexico and Canada, would painfully raise prices on everyday items and reduce the purchasing power of every American.

But tariffs are far worse than just increasing the costs of goods, they also hurt American manufacturing and destroy jobs in two key ways:

1-For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Meaning that the countries we impose tariffs on will certainly put retaliatory tariffs on made in America products. This will hurt American exports, making them more expensive in overseas markets, and less competitive, translating to less demand for made in America and grown in America products and destroying jobs.

2-Nearly all manufactured goods have raw materials and parts that are sourced globally. That means that with tariffs, factories and manufacturers in the United States would be forced to pay a surcharge on parts and raw materials imported from our largest trading partners. Companies would therefore be more likely to shutter American factories and invest and grow production and manufacturing outside of the United States in other countries that don’t have these tariffs, particularly on goods manufactured for the global market.

The Wall Street Journal put it very well by calling Trump’s proposed tariffs and trade wars “one of the dumbest in history,” truly a self-inflicted wound on the purchasing power of American families and on our economy and jobs. I truly hope that President Trump is looking for some kind of settlement to avoid this destructive nonsense, because the tariffs would set off a trade war with devastating negative impacts on our standard of living and our economy. There is still time for an off-ramp and to save face, but a global (or western hemisphere) recession is sadly the most likely outcome if these trade wars proceed.

edited: for format only